Heavy snowfall this winter along the East Coast may have kept new salespeople out of the field for extended periods and contributed to a small decline in first-quarter sales at Pressure BioSciences Inc. (NSDQ:PBIO).

Overall sales for the three months ended March 31 were $291,000, down about $16,000 from the year-ago period. The net loss during the quarter was $911,000, or more than four times the $224,000 reported for the first quarter of 2009.

“We believe that the loss of two full weeks by one-half of our outside sales team was the major factor resulting in the first decline in year-over-year quarterly revenue since the second quarter of 2008,” Corporate Comptroller Joseph Damasio said in prepared remarks accompanying the latest financial results. “Because we believe this was an atypical occurrence, we remain optimistic that revenue and installations for 2010 will exceed those for 2009.”

Damasio and other Pressure Bio officials said the big jump in the company’s net loss was largely due to higher legal costs associated with efforts to protect patent claims underlying its pressure-cycling technology.