Opinion ID: 279293
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Union Carbide Publications

Text: 21 The district court found that, 22 '17. As early as 1942, a Union Carbide publication entitled 'Vinylite Rigid Sheets Plastic' (Ex. S) described under a section entitled 'Embossing', the alleged inventive concept of the Souza-- '625 and Souza-- '822 patents as follows: 'with suitable pigmented thin plastic rigid sheets, cold embossing in shallow designs produces interesting and unusual effects. Male and female dies are used and the sheet is passed between the plates and pressure is applied. In this case, the sheet is formed while cold, and strains are set up which result in a whitening effect in the design. For this reason, embossed lettering produced by this method stands out clearly from the rest of the sheet.' The plastic rigid sheets were described in the publication as copolymers of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate, the plastic material to which the entire publication was devoted. This was the same plastic material as described and claimed in the Souza-- '625 and Souza-- '822 patents. 23 '18. A later Union Carbide publication (Ex. W), issued in 1945, contained the same description as appeared in the 1942 Union Carbide publication regarding cold embossing of rigid plastic sheets to produce whitened lettering or designs. It stated that the copolymers of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate, to which the publication was devoted, were usually modified by lubricants, stabilizers and additives also referred to in the Souza patents. The 1945 publication also described the higher impact-resisting grades of the vinyl copolymers as most suited to the cold embossing process. It was well known by those skilled in the plastics art that higher impact grades of rigid plastic sheets are those containing reinforcing fillers, such as aluminum hydrate and the other additives described in the Souza patents. For example, United States Patent No. 2,370,280, which issued to Union Carbide on February 27, 1945, disclosed high-impact plastics consisting of copolymers of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate compounded with aluminum hydrate as a filler together with stabilizers, plasticizers, and lubricants. These are the ingredients of the Union Carbide VCA-- 3381 plastic material referred to in the Souza-- '625 and Souza-- '822 patents. The 3381 formulation of Union Carbide was described as a high-impact material in a 1954 Union Carbide publication entitled 'Bakelite Plastics Vinyl Rigid Sheets Technical Data' (Ex. AB). 24 '19. The method claimed in the claims of the Souza-- '625 patent and the articles claimed in the claims of the Souza-- '822 patent are anticipated by the 1942 Union Carbide publication (Ex. S) and by the 1945 Union Carbide publication (Ex. W). The description in these publications also made the selection of Union Carbide's VCA-3381, the vinyl plastic first cold-embossed by Souza and referred to in his patents, a matter of reading a list to select the material meeting the described requirements. Such a list was contained in the 1954 Union Carbide publication (Ex. AB) which described the 3381 plastic of Union Carbide as a high-impact material.' C.T. 78-79, 144-46. 25 Dymo argues that these publications did not sufficiently specify the plastics that could be stress-whitened, and that therefore they should not be held to constitute an anticipation of the method and label patents. We do not pass upon the district court's conclusion with respect to the 1942 brochure, but as to the 1945 publication, we feel that the reference to 'higher impact resisting' grades of Vinylite materials (described in the earlier brochure as colpolymers of vinyl chloride and vinyl acetate) may properly have been taken by the district court to have sufficiently specified the stress-sensitive plastics that will produce the effect Souza sought to patent. There was expert testimony to that effect. R.T. 477. We therefore find no fault with the court's conclusion in regard to anticipation by that publication. 26