Bucking the U.S. government and the biotech and pharmaceutical industries, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Monday narrowly construed the “on-sale bar” to patent validity despite new language in the America Invents Act.

A three-judge panel led by Chief Judge Sharon Prost reversed a New Jersey federal judge's decision finding that Helsinn Healthcare SA did not avoid the on-sale bar even if it kept some details of a drug sale confidential.

“We conclude that, after the AIA, if the existence of the sale is public, the details of the invention need not be publicly disclosed” to trigger the statutory on-sale bar, she wrote.