Appeals Court Created Chaos in Contract Law, Inventor Says

A Federal Circuit ruling overturning a $1.2 million verdict in a design patent suit conflicts with previous precedent and “turns contract law on its head,” an inventor claims in a new petition to the US Supreme Court.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in February that Medical Components Inc. and Martech Medical Products Inc. didn’t infringe a design patent owned by Larry Junker because of an offer to sell the design presented more than a year before the patent application was filed. The patent was invalid under the on-sale bar, which blocks patent applications filed more ...