In a decision Tuesday, the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court's holding that two patents were invalid under the on-sale bar of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).  The inventor filed a declaration during prosecution that the invention was reduced to practice before the critical date of the patents, and thereafter sold the claimed method, also before the critical date.  The post-reduction to practice sales could not be considered experimental use, as once an invention is reduced to practice, experimental use is no longer possible.  Further, there was insuffucient evidence to call the inventor's declaration into question.  On this point, the plaintiff attempted to rely upon additional evidence not presented to the district court in opposition to the defendants' summary judgment motion.  The Federal Circuit rebuffed this attempt, limiting the plaintiff on appeal to the evidence presented to the district court in opposition to the summary judgment motion.  As a result, the court affirmed the finding of invalidity.

The Federal Circuit further affirmed the district court's dismissal of the plaintiff's trade secret claims as barred under the statute of limitations.  The court held the plaintiff had sufficient information to allege trade secret misappropriation at least as early as 1996, but did not file suit until 2005, well outside the applicable 3-year limitations period.  Accordingly, dismissal of the trade secret claims was proper.

More concerning In re Cygnus Telecomms. Tech., LLC, Patent Litig. after the jump. 

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In a decision last week, the Seventh Circuit vacated and remanded a district court's preliminary injunction in a copyright and trade secret case.  The court addressed the degree of specificity necessary for an injunction against misappropriating trade secrets and infringing copyrights, and vacated the injunction because it failed to detail the substance of the trade secret or confidential information the defendant was enjoined from using.

Interestingly, the court called attention to the fact that most of the information claimed as trade secret could actually be obtained by FOIA requests sent to state authorities.  The parties are modular home manufacturers, and are required to submit specific details of the homes they plan to sell in order to obtain state approval; those details were among the purported trade secrets.  The court said the injunction did not specify whether information obtained through the FOIA requests would violate the injunction.

More detail of Patriot Homes, Inc. v. Forest River Housing, Inc. after the jump.

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Forbes has an interesting piece regarding marketing ideas, specifically way to protect an idea when pitching it to companies or ways to avoid "giving something away" in the process.  It's written to be easily understood by non-lawyers, and has some good general suggestions.  Notably absent from the list:  using the line "I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."