Buddy Is a Recent Father and a Machinist at a Local

Buddy is a recent father and a machinist at a local machine shop. One day while driving to work, Buddy conceived an idea for an improved baby stroller. He quickly worked out many of the details of how to build such an improved stroller, but he still had questions. Buddy later explained his idea to his employer and showed the employer detailed preliminary drawings of the stroller without any agreement as to confidentiality. Buddy wanted use of his employer's machine shop to build a model. Buddy's employer was also excited about the stroller idea and its commercial potential, and the two quickly reached an oral agreement. Buddy would have free use of the machine shop equipment and supplies after regular business hours to work on his model. In exchange, Buddy agreed to assign any patent rights in his invention to the employer for $1,000.00. Only Buddy and, occasionally, his employer were ever present in the shop when Buddy was working on the stroller. Buddy finalized the design just over a year later, and a nonprovisional patent application was on file within a month of finalization along with a recently executed written assignment of the rights in the invention to Buddy's employer. During prosecution of the patent application, the examiner learned of the oral agreement between Buddy and his employer, and rejected the claims on the basis that the invention was on sale more than one year before the application filing date. Determine which of the following would provide the most reasonable basis for traversing the rejection in accordance with the patent laws, rules and procedures as related in the MPEP.

A) The examiner cannot properly make the rejection because it is not based on prior art patents or printed publications.
B) The oral agreement was a private transaction between Buddy and his employer and no private transaction can provide a basis for an on-sale bar.
C) An assignment or sale of the rights in an invention and potential patent rights is not a sale of "the invention" that would operate as a bar to patentability under 35 USC 102(b) .
D) There can be no on-sale bar even though there was no express requirement of confidentiality because no one other than Buddy's employer was present in the shop when Buddy was working on the stroller and the oral agreement was not public
E) Although the oral agreement to assign the patent to Buddy's employer was made more than a year before the filing date, the written assignment was less than a year before the filing date, and under the Statute of Frauds, sales for more than $500.00 requi