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Section 102 (b) of Title 35 precludes an inventor from receiving a patent if the invention was on sale in the United States more than one year prior to filing a patent application. The statutory structure of the onsale bar has left the term" invention" ill-defined, leading to considerable uncertainty in the courts. Hoping to add predictability to this unsettled area of law, the Supreme Court in Pfaff v. Wells Electronics, Inc. articulated a new standard that requires. an invention be" ready for patenting" in order for the bar to apply.

This new test, as applied by the lower courts, has effected no real change in the law as district courts are diverging significantly from the Supreme Court's test and holding that the offer for sale of the mere conception of the invention is sufficient for the bar to apply. The courts also have conflated the two versions of the on-sale bar: the anticipatory version, where what is offered for sale is precisely the same …