The Federal Circuit has ruled that NCS Multistage's private sale of its AirLock product was not a public disclosure under 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(1)(B). The decision extends the court's earlier Sanho reasoning to this grace-period provision.
Because NCS's own sale was private, it did not trigger the grace-period exception. That allowed a rival's later sale to be treated as prior art, undermining NCS's patent position.
According to the Patently-O report, the ruling means inventors cannot rely on private sales to block a third party's later public sale from becoming prior art. The practical effect is a narrower path to the grace-period protection offered by the statute.