Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Inc.

Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Inc.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 6, 1998 Decided November 10, 1998
Full case name	Wayne K. Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Incorporated
Citations	525 U.S. 55 (more) 119 S. Ct. 304; 142 L. Ed. 2d 261; 1998 U.S. LEXIS 7268; 67 U.S.L.W. 4009; 48 U.S.P.Q.2d (BNA) 1641; 98 Cal. Daily Op. Service 8319; 98 Daily Journal DAR 11535; 1998 Colo. J. C.A.R. 5775
Case history
Prior	Summary judgment granted to defendant, 1992 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22592 (N.D. Tex. 1992); reversed and remanded, 5 F.3d 514 (Fed. Cir. 1993); partial judgment granted to plaintiff, 995 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 21747 (N.D. Tex. 1995); affirmed in part, reversed in part, 124 F.3d 1429 (Fed. Cir. 1997); rehearing denied, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 28585 (Fed. Cir. 1997); certiorari granted in part, 523 U.S. 1003 (1998)
Subsequent	Rehearing denied, 525 U.S. 1003 (1094)
Holding
An invention is "on sale" within the meaning of the statutory bar of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b), if it is 1) the subject of a commercial transaction, and 2) capable of being patented because at that time, either because it had in fact been reduced to practice, or because it was sufficiently well described for another person skilled in the art to build the invention from the designs. Federal Circuit affirmed.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy David Souter · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinion
Majority	Stevens, joined by unanimous
Laws applied
35 U.S.C. § 102(b)

Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Inc., 525 U.S. 55 (1998), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that determined what constituted being "on sale" for the purposes of barring the grant of a patent for an invention.^[1]