The U.S. Supreme Court denied Celanese's petition seeking clarity on patent invalidation, affirming a ruling by the Federal Circuit regarding the on-sale bar under the AIA. Celanese's challenge emerged from a decision involving claims of artificial sweetener manufacturing processes, where it was established that products made using these patented processes had been secretly sold prior to the one-year on-sale provision. The court's decision upholds a precedent that the on-sale bar applies even when a process is undisclosed, thus marking a significant point in patent law interpretation following the Helsinn Healthcare case.
In its Supreme Court petition, Celanese argued 'the Federal Circuit adopted a contrary rule only by flouting the bedrock principle that statutory interpretation starts (and often ends) with the text.'
The petition was an appeal from the August 12,2024, precedential decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in Celanese International Corp. v. International Trade Commission (ITC) affirming the ITC's ruling that process patents owned by Celanese were invalid due to secret sales of products made by the claimed process prior to the one-year on-sale bar.
Celanese petitioned the ITC concerning high-potency sweeteners sold by Chinese chemical manufacturer, Anhui Jinhe, which allegedly infringed claims of three Celanese patents covering processes for making artificial sweeteners.
During that proceeding, it was undisputed that, more than one year prior to the patents' effective filing date, Celanese's process was in secret use in Europe resulting in sales of Ace-K sweetener into the United States.
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