Small business owners who might be considering patenting to protect their intellectual property should be aware of the on-sale bar. The on-sale bar of 35 U.S.C. 102 is a United States patent law term that means if an invention has been for sale for over one year, it is no longer patentable. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On-sale_bar Recently, this bar had bearing on a case involving a rose grower in Delaware.
Mr. Shaw is the inventor and owner of a patent, applied for on January 16, 1996 and issued on June 16, 1998. The patent describes a process that produces larger rose heads by placing elastic, porous nets over the rose heads during the growing process and removing them before the roses are cut and sold. Shaw became aware of infringemnet on his patent; i.e. others (in this case, the Plaintiffs) were employing his method without agreement from him, in violation of his patent. After Shaw sent Plaintiffs several cease-and-desist letters based upon their purported infringement of the patent, Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Shaw seeking declaratory relief. Shaw counterclaimed for infringement. However, Shaw testified at deposition that roses produced using the invention were sold by him more than a year before he filed the patent application. Therefore, Shaw's patent is not valid, since it violates the on-sale bar.
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