Opinion ID: 298437
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: the obviousness of the conibear and lehn patents

Text: 23 The parties have stipulated that claim 8 of the Conibear patent and claim 2 of the Lehn patent, 6 in general, represent the claims made by each of the inventors, and that the validity of other patent claims rests upon the determination of said claim 8 and claim 2. As to claim 8 of the Conibear patent, the district court held this device to be anticipated by two Mau patents, Mau (I), 2,564,811, issued August 21, 1951, Mau (II), 2,701,428, issued February 8, 1955, and Ullman, 1,436,833, issued November 28, 1922. As to claim 2 of the Lehn patent, the court ruled that it was anticipated by the same inventions as anticipated by Conibear, plus Zahm, 2,202,938, issued June 4, 1940. 24 The Patent Office cited three patents, Oleen, 2,459,580, issued January 18, 1949, and the two Mau patents as part of the prior art in the Conibear patent. The district court considered the Conibear patent to have been anticipated by the two Mau patents and Ullman. The expert witness called by the defendant relied upon both Mau patents and the Ullman patent in concluding that the Conibear development was obvious in light of the prior art. This expert witness, a member of the patent bar and formerly a patent examiner himself, with a technical education in chemistry and physics, testified with regard to the prior art and the obviousness of the Conibear patent, stating: 25 Mau has the general combination [of Conibear] and it also has the latch, either Mau does. Ullman has a trap with a latch and a release mechanism. The other thing that Mau lacks is some mechanism to lift the latch from engagement. 26 The witness then concluded that the Conibear patent was anticipated by either Mau patent in view of the Ullman patent. On cross-examination, the defendants' expert witness conceded that he could not find any single prior art reference that showed all of the elements of claim 8 of the Conibear patent. 27 Before the district court and on this appeal, plaintiff urges that the nonobvious features of the Conibear and Lehn patents were the trigger mechanism, the use of round stock, and the form or configuration of the traps, with primary emphasis being placed on the trigger mechanism device. The plaintiff's expert witness testified that this trigger mechanism and the use of round stock were the nonobvious and significant improvements over the prior art in this field. The district court rejected these claims of nonobviousness, however, concluding that the Conibear and Lehn patents rest upon exceedingly small and quite non-technical [sic] differences in a trap which was old in the art. 312 F.Supp. at 373. 28 In determining whether the defendants have sustained their burden of establishing the validity of the Conibear and Lehn patents, it is necessary initially to examine the prior art in this field at the time of the patents in question. Mau II disclosed a trap comprised of two loop-shaped frames of rectangular bar stock. Mau II represented a trap very similar to the earlier Mau version, Mau I, and reflected the attempts of the inventor to correct the deficiencies of the earlier trap. The obvious deficiency of Mau I was that the trap, when set, was of such a configuration that it was possible for an animal to come in from the side or top of the trap and trigger the trap without being captured. In Mau II, the inventor attempted to solve this problem by having the coil spring of the trap bent over the top and sides of the trap and staked into position to prevent an animal from entering the trap from either side or the top and thereby triggering the trap without being caught. The Mau II trap somewhat resembled the Conibear patent as illustrated in the following diagram, and, upon release, the jaws rotated in the same egg beater fashion. 29 NOTE: OPINION CONTAINING TABLE OR OTHER DATA THAT IS NOT VIEWABLE 30 The trigger-latch of the Mau II trap consisted of a wire fixed on one jaw and attached to the other jaw in the manner of a hook. The trap trigger was fixed and could not be adjusted along the trap frames. Movement of the trigger wire in an appropriate plane would twist the latch and spring the trap. This trigger mechanism, however, lacked the positive quick release in the Conibear trigger device. As indicated above, even the defendants' expert witness conceded that the Mau patents lack a mechanism to lift the latch from engagement and thereby rapidly spring the trap. Neither of the Mau traps were ever manufactured commercially. 31 The Ullman patent discloses a trap designed to catch burrowing animals. Two arms or jaws extending from a coil spring cross each other when the trap is set. The latch holding these arms or jaws in a set position through a rotating and pivoting mechanism permits the release of the trap when the burrowing animal steps on the trigger. The Ullman device represents an entirely different form and type of trap in its configuration, operation, and triggering than found in the Mau traps or in the devices here in question. 32 The principal differences between the Conibear patent and the prior art are the trigger mechanism which provides a positive quick release of the jaw, permitting the instantaneous killing of the animal, and a configuration of the trap which alleviates the problem encountered by the Mau patents of the animal entering the trap from the side and setting the trap off without being caught. The Conibear patent thus solved the two main problems encountered by the earlier killer-swing-frame type traps. The Conibear device solved the problem of animals entering the trap through the sides or by the top, through the use of a new configuration made of round wire stock. More importantly, the Conibear patent demonstrates the combination of a positive trigger release with a trap configuration of appropriate jaws designed to strike and hold the animal at the neck rather than the leg. These features represented a substantial improvement over the Mau patents, and over the conventional leg-hold traps. 33 Turning to a consideration of the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art, the evidence establishes that a person having ordinary skill in the trapping art should have recognized the serious deficiencies in the Mau patents and the other prior art. However, while the deficiencies in the prior art were readily recognizable, it does not follow that the solution to those problems would have been obvious to one possessing ordinary skill in the art. 34 The situation in the instant case is greatly different from that in Graham, supra, where not only the deficiencies in the prior art, but also the solution to those deficiencies, were readily recognizable in the existing art. There, the deficiency in the prior art was overcome by simply inverting the plow shank and the hingeplate. 383 U.S. at 25, 86 S.Ct. 684. In the instant case, merely designing a trap configuration which would solve the problems encountered by the Mau traps would not alone cure the deficiencies in the prior art. Conibear not only conceived a new trap configuration, but also combined with it an effective, positive, quick release trigger mechanism which turned an otherwise impractical trap into an effective killer trap. We fail to see on this record that this solution would have been readily obvious to one having ordinary skill in the pertinent art. 35 To buttress its claim of patentability, plaintiff introduced evidence that the inventor of the trap, Frank Conibear, had received the only award ever given by the American Humane Association (AHA) for the development of a humane animal trap. In 1953, the AHA announced that $10,000 would be awarded for the invention of the perfect humane animal trap. In 1960, the AHA awarded Conibear a $600 cash prize and a certificate of merit for the invention of his swing frame killer trap. This marked the first and only recognition ever given to a trap inventor. In making the award, the AHA noted that while the trap did not completely fulfill the requirements of a perfect humane trap, it was the first trap to approach the ultimate goal. 36 In awarding Frank Conibear its certificate of merit and cash prize, the American Humane Association made the following statement regarding the Conibear trap and its impact on the trapping industry: 37 To say that a device should be equally effective for trapping muskrats in the marshes of Maryland as in trapping mink and marten under the snow and freezing conditions of Canada, may be asking entirely too much. 38 And yet, in an endeavor such as the AHA trap contest — which is aimed at providing more humane and effective wild animal traps — the development of the Conibear trap, which more or less revolutionizes the trapping of muskrats under many conditions, is a major step forward. 39 Plaintiff produced another witness, Elihu S. Abbott, a long-time professional trapper and winner of national recognition in the trapping field, who testified that the commercial version of the Conibear trap had almost completely replaced the old-style leg-hold trap, and that it operated with such effectiveness that it increased the quantity of the catch and resulted in less damage to the quality of the fur. 7 40 Another witness, Arthur V. Harding, the publisher and editor of Fur-Fish-Game magazine for over forty years, testified as to the impact of the Conibear trap on the trapping industry. He stated: 41 It [the Conibear trap] was a terrific impact because before the Conibear came out, I had all kinds of letters from trappers complaining about loss of animals due to twistouts, and so forth, and Conibear just licked their problems. 42 Although Mr. Harding was not a trapper himself, he had been closely associated with, and very knowledgeable in, the trapping industry for most of his life. 43 Evidence of this nature, whether characterized as commercial success, fulfilling long-felt but unsolved needs, failure of others and similar considerations may be utilized to give light to the circumstances surrounding the origin of the patent in question, and may have relevancy as indicia of obviousness. Graham, supra, 383 U.S. at 17-18, 86 S.Ct. 684. 44 We deem the deposition testimony of the inventor John U. Lehn, taken and introduced by defendants, to be most significant on the issue of obviousness. His testimony demonstrates the nonobvious nature of the Conibear trap and indicates that the recognition of mechanical features of existing trap art did not foretell the Conibear invention. The seventy-five year old Lehn, an employee of the plaintiff, had spent most of his adult life as an inventor and mechanic in the animal trap field. Lehn claimed sole credit for some twenty patents and partial credit for ten others. Lehn's testimony, given with remarkable candor, discloses that even the resolution of an apparently simple problem, such as the size of frames for use in traps with particular animals, presented unusual difficulties and required actual experimentation with live animals. 8 Lehn further testified as to his reaction upon reading a magazine article describing the success of the Conibear trap. His testimony on this point is most interesting and instructive concerning the issue of obviousness to one skilled in the pertinent art. He testified: 45 [W]hen I read that [the magazine article describing the Conibear trap], it almost knocked me off my feet, the story inside about the catches on this Conibear trap. Oh, they had caught everything.    Well, I couldn't take my eyes off of that picture anymore. I wanted to know how he set that trap. That's the first thing that come to my mind and it didn't come up until I had that whole thing developed. He didn't show the mechanism and that's the thing he tried to hide. I knew he tried to hide it; unless if he didn't try to hide it, the whole story in the magazine would be a fake. So I was convinced that he purposely hid the setting device of that trap, and that's what I was interested in when they sent it out to me. 46 After viewing an illustration of the Conibear trap in the magazine, but without seeing the actual trap or any illustration of the trigger mechanism, Lehn created his own version of this trap. He easily reproduced the frames in a similar configuration, but his efforts to construct an effective trigger mechanism proved fruitless. He experimented with wires twisted ninety degrees to hold the jaws in the set position, and later tried metal pieces notched to fit over the frames. However, it wasn't until the plaintiff company had purchased the rights to the Conibear trap and had given Lehn a model of the Conibear trap that he developed an effective trigger. Lehn testified: 47 [A]fter I got this [the Conibear trap]    I played with that awhile and I didn't fancy that [the Conibear trigger mechanism] as much. I thought I could make a simpler one. 48 After developing his own trigger mechanism for the trap, Lehn's employer obtained a patent thereon, but the witness conceded that, in his opinion, this patent did not amount to a hill of beans. 49 On the instant appeal, the plaintiff-appellant focuses his primary attack upon the crucial testimony which lead the district court to reject the Conibear patent. The defendants' expert witness, admittedly possessing no experience in the trap art, could not state which elements should be taken from the Mau patents and which elements should be taken from the Ullman patent to construct this anticipatory combination. In light of the other testimony and evidence introduced, we think appellant's objection to the district court's reliance upon the defendants' expert witness is well taken. 9 It is important to remember that the defendants, having raised the defense of patent in validity, assumed the burden of overcoming by substantial evidence the presumption of patent validity. See note 4, supra. 50 We entertain great doubt that defendants' evidentiary presentation warrants a conclusion that the existing state of the art suggested the solution demonstrated in the Conibear device. A conclusion of obviousness of the device, as drawn by defendants' expert, rests solely on his opinion that since other traps applied the same mechanical principle used by Conibear, that these other inventions foretold Conibear. As we have noted, a gap remains since defendants' case offers no explanation how, without hindsight, one having skill in the art would ascertain the mechanical elements he should draw from scores of existing traps, antique traps or traps disclosed in the Patent Office which would convert or create a workable killer trap adaptable to trapping fur-bearing animals out of Mau II or any other killer type trap existing in the art. 51 Notwithstanding Mr. Justice Clark's admonition in Graham, supra, that [h]e who seeks to build a better mousetrap today has a long path to tread before reaching the Patent Office, 10 the plaintiff succeeds here, primarily, because the defendants have failed to rebut the § 282 presumption (35 U.S.C. § 282) attaching to the Conibear patent. Contrary to the contention of the appellees, this presumption of validity has not been weakened or destroyed in this case merely because the defendants cite Ullman as a pertinent reference not cited as relevant art in the United States Patent Office documents. Ullman bears neither physical resemblance nor utilizes the application of the same mechanics as Conibear. Although similar mechanical principles of quick trigger release may exist, this invention, as a whole, seems to bear little relevance to Conibear. Thus, the failure of the Patent Office to cite Ullman does not erode the strength of the presumption. See Shaw v. E. B. & A. C. Whiting Co., 417 F.2d 1097, 1104 (2d Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 1076, 90 S.Ct. 1518, 25 L.Ed.2d 811 (1970); Leach v. Rockwood & Co., 404 F.2d 652, 654 (7th Cir. 1968); cf. Ralston Purina Co. v. General Foods Corp., 442 F.2d 389 (8th Cir. 1971); L & A Products, Inc., supra, 365 F.2d at 86-87; American Infra-Red Radiant Co. v. Lambert Industries, Inc., 360 F.2d 977, 989 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 920, 87 S.Ct. 233 (1966). 52 Certainly the Patent Office cited, considered, and rejected the most pertinent prior art offered in this case, that of Mau I and Mau II. Such consideration serves to preserve the strength of the presumption as against the defendants' contrary contention. See Leach, supra, 404 F.2d at 654; Williams v. V. R. Myers Pump and Supply, Inc., 371 F.2d 192, 194 (7th Cir. 1966); Briggs v. M & J Diesel Locomotive Filter Corp., 342 F.2d 573, 576 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 801, 86 S.Ct. 11, 15 L.Ed.2d 55 (1965); Cold Metal Process Company v. Republic Steel Corp., 233 F.2d 828, 837 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 352 U.S. 891, 77 S.Ct. 128, 1 L.Ed.2d 86 (1956); Mott Corporation v. Sunflower Industries, Inc., 314 F.2d 872, 877 (10th Cir. 1963). 53 In retrospect, many creative developments seem commonplace. The critical question under Graham is whether at the time of the invention the subject would have been obvious to one skilled in the art. The Court noted in Graham that the inquiries and tests it set out in that opinion might serve to guard against slipping into use of hindsight    and to resist the temptation to read into the prior art the teachings of the invention in issue. 383 U.S. at 36, 86 S.Ct. at 703. See Shaw, supra, 417 F.2d at 1106; Columbia Broadcasting Sys. v. Sylvania Electric Prod., Inc., 415 F.2d 719, 728 (1st Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 1061, 90 S.Ct. 755, 24 L.Ed.2d 755 (1970); National Dairy Products Corporation v. Borden Company, 394 F.2d 887, 891 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 953, 89 S.Ct. 378, 21 L.Ed.2d 364 (1968); National Connector Corp., supra, 392 F.2d at 771. 54 We think the remarks of Judge Learned Hand in two separate patent cases to be most appropos within the limited context of the record presented here. In B. G. Corporation v. Walter Kidde & Co., 79 F.2d 20, 22 (2d Cir. 1935), he noted: 55 All machines are made up of the same elements; rods, pawls, pitmans, journals, toggles, gears, cams, and the like, all acting their parts as they always do and always must.    But the elements are capable of an infinity of permutations, and the selection of that group which proves serviceable to a given need may require a high degree of originality. It is that act of selection which is the invention; and it must be beyond the capacity of common-place imagination. 56 Later, in Reiner v. I. Leon Co., 285 F.2d 501 (2d Cir. 1960), Judge Hand made the following observation concerning the role of a court in patent litigation: 57 The test laid down [for obviousness] is indeed misty enough. It directs us to surmise what was the range of ingenuity of a person having ordinary skill in an art with which we are totally unfamiliar; and we do not see how such a standard can be applied at all except by recourse to the earlier work in the art, and to the general history of the means available at the time. To judge on our own that this or that new assemblage of old factors was, or was not, obvious is to substitute our ignorance for the acquaintance with the subject of those who were familiar with it. There are indeed some sign posts: e. g. how long did the need exist; how many tried to find the way; how long did the surrounding and accessory arts disclose the means; how immediately was the invention recognized as an answer by those who used the new variant? [285 F.2d at 503-504] 58 Cf.Graham, supra, 383 U.S. at 36, 86 S.Ct. 684; White v. Fafnir Bearing Company, 389 F.2d 750, 754 (2d Cir. 1968).