In one of its first decisions of the new year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has dealt with a seldom implicated provision of 35 U.S.C. § 271(a): an offer for sale. FieldTurf Int’l Inc. v. Sprinturf, Inc., Case No. 04-1553 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 5, 2006) (Newman, J.).
By way of background, the architect for a California school district had issued a request for proposal (RFP) for a sports playing field using a synthetic turf. The RFP specified the turf should have the same features as FieldTurf Int’l Inc.’s patented product. Responding to SportFields’ complaint that California law does not favor such sole source procurement in an RFP, the bid specifications were amended. SportFields, however, continued to complain that the amendments still did not clearly permit any substitute to FieldTurf’s product. In response, the school invited SportFields to submit a bid regardless as it was too late to change the specifications again. Having submitted the lowest bid, SportFields was awarded the contract.
FieldTurf sued SportFields for patent infringement, alleging, among other things, that under § 271(a), SportFields’ bid constituted an unqualified offer to sell the product specified in the RFP. The district court disagreed, holding that although a bid is an offer of sale, the particular bid in the case was not an offer to sell the patented product because SportFields intended to sell its own non-infringing product. The undisputed facts in the record clearly established that all parties knew the actual product that SportFields intended to sell was a non-infringing product. The Federal Circuit affirmed, stating the district court correctly considered the nature of the product that SportFields intended and understood to be offering for sale.
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