Mahurkar v. C.R. Bard, Inc.
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
79 F.3d 1572 (1996)
Dr. Sakharam D. Mahurkar (plaintiff), who began developing a double-lumen dialysis catheter in 1979 and continuously tested prototypes while identifying manufacturers capable of producing human-safe tubing, filed a patent application in October 1983 and later licensed it to C.R. Bard, Inc. and related entities (Bard) (defendant); after Bard violated the license and Mahurkar sued for infringement, Bard argued the patent was invalidated by a July 1983 Cook, Inc. catalog disclosing a similar catheter. The district court granted Mahurkar's motion for judgment as a matter of law, finding no reasonable jury could conclude the Cook catalog constituted prior art, and Bard appealed.
Whether, if an inventor establishes that invention of the subject matter of a patent occurred before the publication of a printed document claimed to be prior art, the printed document is prior art barring the patent.