Opinion ID: 211765
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Failure to Disclose the Roessel Advertisement

Text: 19 Frazier additionally challenges the district court's conclusion that the '236 patent is unenforceable for inequitable conduct based on the failure to disclose the Roessel advertisement. Frazier essentially argues that the district court's findings of intent and materiality with respect to the Roessel advertisement were clearly erroneous. We agree with Frazier that the district court's finding of materiality of the Roessel advertisement is clearly erroneous and that the district court's inequitable conduct determination based on that failure to disclose must be reversed. 20 The district court articulated four bases for finding the Roessel advertisement to be material. First, the district court found that Neil should have been on notice that a potential issue of prior inventorship between overlapping claims of the Frazier Patent and the Roessel Patent had arisen and that it would be necessary to commence an interference action to resolve them. Inequitable Conduct Opinion at 55-56. The district court, however, did not find that any claim of the Roessel patent even arguably interfered with any claim in Frazier's then-pending application. Thus, it is unclear why any possibility of an interference should have been apparent from the Roessel patent, much less the advertisement discovered six months before Roessel's application was filed and two and a half years before the first mention of the Roessel patent in the prosecution history of Frazier's application. 21 The district court apparently concluded that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the Supersnorkel lens featured in the Roessel advertisement was sufficient to raise an issue of prior inventorship with respect to Frazier's application. Referring to the Roessel advertisement, the district court said, 22 One skilled in the art would recognize that the presence of long tubing of relatively small diameter between an objective lens on the one end and the camera on the other clearly denotes that the tubing must contain one or more relay lenses or field lens/relay lens combinations to transmit the image from the objective lens to the film plane in the camera. 23 Id. at 37 (emphasis added). The district court's finding essentially acknowledged that one of ordinary skill in the art could not confidently assume that the Supersnorkel lens depicted in the advertisement had a field lens as required by the claims of Frazier's application. Indeed, although the defendant's expert Milton Laikin (Laikin) testified that one would expect to find a field lens within the Supersnorkel based on the advertisement, he also agreed with the statement that a person of ordinary skill in the art would not necessarily know whether or not there was a field lens, although [he or she] might suspect that there could be. When he inspected the actual disassembled Supersnorkel lens depicted in that advertisement, it in fact did not have a field lens. 24 The district court additionally found that the Supersnorkel ad disclosed three optical axes arranged at right angles to each other and which were connected by two rotatable joints. Id. at 57. However, the defendant's expert Laikin admitted that these limitations were already before the examiner in other prior art. Moreover, Laikin also admitted that other limitations of the claims were not disclosed by the Supersnorkel ad, such as the creation of an intermediate image within the lens with an image size greater than that of the image at the film plane. Thus, the district court's finding that the ad was material to the patentability of Frazier's pending claims because it raised an issue of prior inventorship is clearly erroneous. Contrary to the dissent, the advertisement does not disclose enough to suggest its materiality to one skilled in the art. 25 The district court's second basis for finding the Roessel advertisement material was that [t]he Super-Snorkel ad put Neil on notice . . . that the lens had been `known or used by others' prior to Frazier's application date. Inequitable Conduct Opinion at 56. The district court concluded that failing to submit the ad allowed Frazier to avoid having to make a showing of prior invention under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102(a) and 102(g)(2). However, the district court again failed to establish a proper basis for materiality. As discussed supra, the advertisement by itself did not disclose enough to put one of ordinary skill in the art on notice of its materiality with respect to the claims of Frazier's application. Even if Neil was able to conclude that the Supersnorkel was an embodiment of Roessel's patent such that Neil recognized a possibility that the invention described in the Roessel patent predated Frazier's filing date, it is unclear that the Roessel patent would have raised any substantial question of patentability with respect to the claims of Frazier's application. The district court did not find that the Roessel patent discloses a field lens as required by the claims of Frazier's application, and none is apparent in the specification. Thus, the district court's materiality finding on this basis is clearly erroneous. 26 In its third basis for finding materiality, the district court concluded that Neil and Solum should have investigated the facts necessary to determine the materiality of the Supersnorkel depicted in the Roessel advertisement. Id. at 57. The district court relied on Brasseler, U.S.A. I, L.P. v. Stryker Sales Corp., 267 F.3d 1370, 1383 (Fed.Cir.2001), for the proposition that notice of the existence of information that appears material and questionable cannot be ignored. In Brasseler, this court said, Where an applicant knows of information the materiality of which may so readily be determined, he or she cannot intentionally avoid learning of its materiality, even through gross negligence . . . . Id. at 1380. However, we went on to say, The mere possibility that material information may exist will not suffice to give rise to a duty to inquire . . . . Id. at 1382. Moreover, this court has repeatedly reaffirmed the proposition that [a]s a general rule, there is no duty to conduct a prior art search, and thus there is no duty to disclose art of which an applicant could have been aware. FMC Corp. v. Hennessy Indus., Inc., 836 F.2d 521, 526 n. 6 (Fed. Cir.1987); see also Bruno Indep. Living Aids, Inc. v. Acorn Mobility Servs., Ltd., 394 F.3d 1348, 1351 n. 4 (Fed.Cir.2005); Nordberg, Inc. v. Telsmith, Inc., 82 F.3d 394, 397 (Fed. Cir. 1996); Am. Hoist & Derrick Co. v. Sowa & Sons, Inc., 725 F.2d 1350, 1362 (Fed.Cir.1984). A requirement that an applicant disclose art of which the applicant should have been aware overlooks the intent element of inequitable conduct. Am. Hoist & Derrick, 725 F.2d at 1362 (Nor does an applicant for patent, who has no duty to conduct a prior art search, have an obligation to disclose any art of which, in the court's words, he `reasonably should be aware.' [That] portion [of the court's instruction] overlooks the intent requirement.). 27 Taking the appropriate standard into account, the district court clearly erred in finding that the Roessel advertisement was material based on Neil and Solum's failure to investigate the Supersnorkel to determine whether it contained all the limitations of the claims of Frazier's application. As we said in Brasseler, The mere possibility that material information may exist will not suffice to give rise to a duty to inquire . . . . Brasseler, 267 F.3d at 1382. While Neil had knowledge of the advertisement, its materiality was not readily determinable. As discussed supra, Laikin's testimony does not rise to the level of clear and convincing evidence of the materiality of the advertisement. Although Neil's clipping of the advertisement and placing it in the Frazier patent application file is evidence that Neil thought the advertisement had some connection with the Frazier application, Neil's explanation that the reason he saved the advertisement was simply because it depicted a periscope lens similar to the P/F lens was credited by the district court. Inequitable Conduct Opinion at 37. 28 The district court's final reason for finding that the Roessel advertisement was material was that it was evidence of contemporaneous invention, an important consideration under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Id. at 56-57. However, as discussed supra, the evidence that Neil should have understood that the Roessel advertisement depicted what was claimed in the Frazier application is less than clear and convincing. Moreover, the Supersnorkel does not in fact contain a field lens and would not have been covered by the claims of Frazier's application. Thus, it is difficult to discern how the Roessel advertisement is evidence of contemporaneous invention. We conclude that the district court's finding of materiality is clearly erroneous on this basis as well. Thus, we reverse the district court's inequitable conduct determination based upon the failure to disclose the Roessel advertisement.