Appeal No. 98-1380
Application 08/786,741
We also do not consider the instant case to be
analogous to the situation involved in Pfaff. In that case, the
court noted that (124 F.3d at 1434, 43 USPQ2d at 1932):
The only step not fully performed at the
time of the sale was the customized tooling
for manufacturing the invention . . . .
The invention in this case is mechanical
and there is no argument that it contains
complicated components or involves a complex
interaction of parts. The step of finishing
the customized tooling was, therefore,
routine and not a major step in the
completion of an embodiment of the invention.
Under all of the circumstances, including the
completion of engineering drawings, the
ordering of production tooling, and the
commencement of fabrication of the tooling
necessary to manufacture the invention for a
specific customer, it is clear that more than
a mere concept was on sale. The
substantially completed socket had entered
the production phase prior to the critical
date and a specific purchase order was being
filled.
By contrast, in this case the invention is embodied in a large,
relatively complex machine costing almost one million dollars,
rather than a mass-produced item such as the socket involved in
Pfaff, and the sale was of a single machine, rather than of
thousands of sockets. In accordance with the above-quoted
language from Pfaff, these factors militate against a finding
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