Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 311(b) , a petition for inter partes review ("IPR") may challenge claims "only on a ground that could be raised under section 102 or 103 and only on the basis of prior art consisting of patents or printed publications ." Qualcomm Inc. v. Apple Inc. , 24 F.4th 1367, 137 3 (Fed. Cir. 2022) . References that constitute prior art because they were in "public use" or "on sale" before the priority date of the challenged claims, 35 U.S.C. § 102(a), were "explicitly excluded" from the grounds that can be raised in IPR . Qualcomm I nc., 24 F.4th at 1376.

The questions presented by the deci sion below are :

I. Did the Federal Circuit err by holding that a product manual distributed with an on sale product necessarily constitutes a printed publication that can be asserted in an IPR , no twithstanding other considerations such as limited distribution, prohibitively high cost, confidential ity restrictions, and industry practice and expectations ?

II. Was the Federal Circuit's determination that a product manual constitutes a printed publication because it was distributed with an on -sale product consistent with 35 U.S.C. § 311(b) , which expressly excludes "on sale" prior art from grounds that may be asserted in inter partes review?

Did the Federal Circuit err in holding that a product manual distributed with an on-sale product constitutes a printed publication that can be asserted in an IPR, despite considerations like limited distribution, high cost, confidentiality, and industry practice?