Source: https://openjurist.org/331/f2d/905
Timestamp: 2017-09-22 23:20:35
Document Index: 565964955

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 101', '§ 111', '§ 32', '§ 70', '§ 42', '§ 20', '§ 154']

331 F2d 905 Application of Everett F Gustafson | OpenJurist
331 F. 2d 905 - Application of Everett F Gustafson
331 F2d 905 Application of Everett F Gustafson
331 F.2d 905
Application of Everett F. GUSTAFSON.
Patent Appeal No. 7204.
Appellant's brief states that the rejection on appeal is "on the ground of aggregation in the sense of an unpatentable combination as defined in In re Worrest," 201 F.2d 930, 40 CCPA 804, and with this the Solicitor agrees. Appellant further states that "A rejection on aggregation in the sense of unpatentable combination is essentially a rejection on obviousness," citing In re Troiel, 274 F. 2d 944, 47 CCPA 795, and In re Carter, 212 F.2d 189, 41 CCPA 851. The solicitor does not agree that this is necessarily so, saying that the aggregation rejection can be said to be based on 35 U.S.C. § 101, "since such a combination is not an invention which can be patented," and that furthermore section 112 is involved as is evident from the board's discussion, citing In re Wright, 256 F.2d 583, 45 CC PA 1005.
Whatever meaning may be attributed to "aggregation," it has become a term of art in patent law to connote something which is not patentable. In parallel or opposition to it is the word "combination" which connotes something which either is deemed to be or which may be patentable, depending on the tribunal using the term. Worrest recognized unpatentable "combinations" as being those combinations which did not display "the exercise of invention," preferring, however, not to call them aggregations. The term appears to have got into the law about 1873 in Hailes v. Van Wormer, 87 U.S. (20 Wall.) 353, 22 L.Ed. 241. See Curtis On Patents § 111c (4th ed. 1873); Walker On Patents § 32 (1st ed. 1883), § 70 (6th ed. 1929), § 42 (Deller ed. 1937); Merwin, Patentability of Inventions § 20 (1883). Compare Robinson On Patents § 154 (1890). As these texts show, from the earliest time aggregation has been but one aspect of the problem of what constitutes "invention." Merwin explains how it was regarded very concisely in section 115, the second in his chapter entitled "Combination." He said (our emphasis):
"For instance, in Reckendorfer v. Faber [92 U.S. 347, 23 L.Ed. 719 (1875)], a leading case, the patentee had joined together a lead-pencil and a rubber-eraser by making a groove in one end of the pencil for about a quarter of its length, and glueing the rubber therein. The court held that this was a mere aggregation."
We are further persuaded that this is the proper course by a recent address by the new Commissioner of Patents to the Patent Office professional staff on April 6, 1964, wherein he said (p. 2 of the copies distributed2):
We of course appreciate that the examiner, and perhaps the board, by assuming a particular meaning for the terms "aggregative" and "aggregation" may have had a definite ground of rejection intheir minds. But considering the obvious fact that the terms are sufficiently ambiguous to have all the meanings ascribed to them in the solicitor's brief, it cannot be assumed that that meaning was communicated to the appellant.