A federal appeals court recently ruled that a patent on a successful birth control product is invalid because the patent owner made an offer to sell the invention more than one year before it applied for said patent. This sounds like a straightforward application of what patent lawyers call the "on sale bar." MERCK & Cie v. WATSON LABS, 125 F.Supp 3d 503 (D. Del. 2015). Merck is appealing this to the SCOTUS. It sought a "stay of mandate," that is, it tried to get Chief Justice Roberts to rule that the decision would not take effect until the high court heard and decided the matter. But they failed to get the stay, so Watson, the generic drug manufacturer, gets to sell the drug at issue in the US pending further developments. Here's a relevant brief from Watson's lawyers. On July 27, Roberts denied that application for stay in a brief order, providing no rationale. Merck's argument is that what it did more than one year prior to the applic...
