Have you or your company ever engaged with anyone else to sell novel products before filing a patent application or engaged someone to manufacture products using novel methods before filing a patent application? If so, then you should ask the million (or possibly multi-million) dollar question: are any patents you have on those products or methods still valid? To the extent you may have thought confidential agreements cannot be a source of invalidating offers for sale, the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision in Helsinn should make you think again.

Originally published in the Intellectual Property & Technology Law Journal, May 2019.