Opinion ID: 382067
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Identification of All Inventors

Text: 60 Section 116 of the code provides that, (w)hen an invention is made by two or more persons jointly, they shall apply for (a) patent jointly and each sign the application and make the required oath. 66 In Amax Fly Ash Corp. v. United States, 67 the Court of Claims held that if greater or fewer than the true number of inventors are named in the application, the patent is void. 68 However, misjoinder or nonjoinder of inventors are technical defenses requiring clear and convincing evidence. 69 61 Premo insists that Eli Lilly failed to comply with this requirement because the patent application listed only Drs. Morin and Jackson, while the one hundred percent absorption rate actually was discovered by the biochemist who tested cephalexin on human subjects in 1967. In support of this contention, Premo relies on General Tire & Rubber Co. v. Jefferson Chemical Co. 70 Jefferson was the assignee of a patent on certain types of polyurethanes, and General owned a virtually identical patent. The polyurethanes at issue were first synthesized by the assignor of the Jefferson patent. The polyurethane compounds were structurally obvious, however, in view of the prior art. Consequently, in support of patentability, Jefferson sought to rely on several unexpected traits exhibited by the polyurethanes. The problem with this theory, according to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, was that the unexpected traits were discovered not by Jefferson or its assignor, but by the assignor of the General patent. The court held that only General's patent was valid because its assignor was the true inventor. Judge Friendly, writing for the court, reasoned that just as 'accidental results, not intended and not appreciated, do not constitute anticipation,' . . . so an unappreciated result of a structurally obvious modification cannot of itself constitute invention. 71 62 After considering Premo's argument on this point the district court dismissed the defense as specious. 72 Although we believe that General Tire is colorable authority for the defense proffered by Premo, we are persuaded that it is distinguishable from the present action. 63 The compound whose patentability is at issue indisputably was synthesized by Drs. Morin and Jackson. They performed the synthesis with the hope that the resulting compound would be the effective oral antibiotic that cephaloglycin and other existing cephalosporins were not. Subsequent testing conducted by an Eli Lilly biochemist on human patients demonstrated that cephalexin was such a drug, although not for the reasons predicted by Drs. Morin and Jackson. Although we have held today that, in assessing the obviousness of a new drug under § 103, courts must consider all of the properties of the new compound, the fact that a person other than Dr. Morin or Dr. Jackson discovered the nonobvious trait possessed by cephalexin does not make that person an inventor of cephalexin for purposes of § 116. For it is without question that the named inventors, Drs. Morin and Jackson, were the only persons who performed the synthesis that created the patented product. In the words of § 116, cephalexin was made by the two named inventors, not by the biochemist who first noted that the organic chemists' predictions had been realized. 64 The concerns underlying the Second Circuit's decision in General Tire simply are not present here. In General Tire, the parties were two companies which each owned a patent for the same compound. The court invalidated Jefferson's patent, which was premised on an unexpected trait, because the original owner of the patent had been unaware of the existence of that trait. Instead, the unexpected trait was first discovered by the assignor of General Tire's patent. Faced with competing claims by companies that each had contributed to the advancement over the prior art-one by synthesizing the new compound, the other by discovering its unexpected trait-the court determined that the owner of the patent whose assignor most contributed to the advancement should have its claim of ownership sustained. 65 There are no analogous competing claims in this case. Both the synthesis of cephalexin and the discovery of its unexpected trait were conducted by chemists employed by Eli Lilly. In contrast, Premo contributed not at all to either the synthesis or the subsequent testing of cephalexin. As such, there is not present here the equitable consideration which gave rise to the court's decision in General Tire -that is, to assign patent ownership to the party that contributed more to the advancement in the state of the art. By identifying Drs. Morin and Jackson as the makers of cephalexin, Eli Lilly complied fully with the requirements of § 116. Therefore, we hold that the district court did not err in rejecting Premo's defense in this respect.5. Summary 66 The foregoing are the only contentions advanced by Premo in its challenge to the decision of the district court that Eli Lilly fulfilled all of the statutory requirements of patentability. We have concluded that the district court did not err in any of its conclusions in this regard. Hence, there is no occasion to address Premo's challenge to the district court's finding of industry acquiescence 73 on which the court relied as an alternative basis for its holding that the patent is valid. Accordingly, we turn to Premo's final contention: that the district court abused its discretion in granting Eli Lilly's application for a preliminary injunction.