Page:Helsinn Healthcare S. A. v. Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc., et al..pdf/10

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HELSINN HEALTHCARE S. A. v. TEVA PHARMACEUTICALS USA, INC.

Opinion of the Court

oblique way of attempting to overturn” that “settled body of law.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 28. The addition of “or otherwise available to the public” is simply not enough of a change for us to conclude that Congress intended to alter the meaning of the reenacted term “on sale.” Cf. Holder v. Martinez Gutierrez, 566 U. S. 583, 593 (2012) (determining that a reenacted provision did not ratify an earlier judicial construction where the provision omitted the word on which the prior judicial constructions were based).

Helsinn disagrees, arguing that our construction reads “otherwise” out of the statute. Citing Paroline v. United States, 572 U. S. 434 (2014), and Federal Maritime Comm’n v. Seatrain Lines, Inc., 411 U. S. 726 (1973), Helsinn contends that the associated-words canon requires us to read “otherwise available to the public” to limit the preceding terms in §102 to disclosures that make the claimed invention available to the public.

As an initial matter, neither of the cited decisions addresses the reenactment of terms that had acquired a well-settled judicial interpretation. And Helsinn’s argument places too much weight on §102’s catchall phrase. Like other such phrases, “otherwise available to the public” captures material that does not fit neatly into the statute’s enumerated categories but is nevertheless meant to be covered. Given that the phrase “on sale” had acquired a well-settled meaning when the AIA was enacted, we decline to read the addition of a broad catchall phrase to upset that body of precedent.

III

Helsinn does not ask us to revisit our pre-AIA interpretation of the on-sale bar. Nor does it dispute the Federal Circuit’s determination that the invention claimed in the ’219 patent was “on sale” within the meaning of the pre-AIA statute. Because we determine that Congress did not alter the meaning of “on sale” when it enacted the AIA, we