Appeal No. 98-1380
Application 08/786,741
an on-sale bar, while in KeyStone, the case was remanded for a
determination of whether what was offered for sale was an embodi-
ment of the claimed invention.
Appellants, on the other hand, cite in support of their
position a number of other cases, decided after UMC, which deal
with the issue of whether there was an on-sale bar: Seal-Flex,
Inc. v. Athletic Track and Court Constr., 98 F.3d 1318, 40 USPQ2d
1450 (Fed. Cir. 1996); Micro Chem. Inc. v. Great Plains Chem.
Co., 103 F.3d 1538, 41 USPQ2d 1238 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied,
117 S.Ct. 2516 (1997); Robotic Vision Sys., Inc. v. View Eng’g,
Inc., 112 F.3d 1163, 42 USPQ2d 1619 (Fed. Cir. 1997); and Kolmes
v. World Fibers Corp., 107 F.3d 1534, 41 USPQ2d 1829 (Fed. Cir.
1997).
In UMC, the court states (816 F.2d at 656-57, 2 USPQ2d
at 1471-72):
[W]e simply say here that the on-sale bar
does not necessarily turn on whether there
was or was not a reduction to practice of
the claimed invention. All of the
circumstances surrounding the sale or offer
to sell, including the stage of development
of the invention and the nature of the
invention, must be considered and weighed
against the policies underlying section
102(b).
. . . If the inventor had merely a
conception or was working towards development
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