Opinion ID: 293996
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: patentability of the claimed invention

Text: 6 Most of the substantial questions presented by this appeal center around the standard of 'obviousness' codified in 35 U.S.C. 103 (1964), which provides that a patent may not be obtained 'if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains.' The broad outlines of our approach in determining questions of obviousness were sketched in Higley v. Brenner, 128 U.S.App.D.C. 290, 292, 387 F.2d 855, 857 (1967): 'What the prior art is and what the claimed invention is are questions of fact. However, whether the standard of obviousness applied to those facts is correct, is a question of law.' 7 In the instant case there is no doubt that the individual components of the claimed invention were well known in the prior art; as the district court found, 'we have here a situation that occurs on occasion when an inventor takes known elements, the significance of which had not been fully appreciated, puts them together and harnesses them to do something that had not been done the same way before.' (I J.A. 217.) The Supreme Court has counseled judicial caution in evaluating such patent claims: 8 Courts should scrutinize combination patent claims with a care proportional to the difficulty and improbability of finding invention in an assembly of old elements. The function of a patent is to add to the sum of useful knowledge. Patents cannot be sustained when, on the contrary, their effect is to subtract from former resources freely available to skilled artisans. A patent for a combination which only unites old elements with no change in their respective functions    obviously withdraws what already is known into the field of its monopoly and diminishes the resources available to skillful men. 9 Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equip. Corp., 340 U.S. 147, 152-153, 71 S.Ct. 127, 130, 95 L.Ed. 162 (1950). 10 With this general philosophy in mind, we turn to the claims presently in issue. In general, the distinctions among the three claims may be summarized as follows: claim 4 describes an upward flow of solvent in the dissolving chamber, but does not specify any flow rate; on the other hand, claims 5 and 6 do not require any particular direction of solvent flow, but do require a flow rate of at least ten gallons per minute per square foot of cross-sectional area of flow path. Finally, claim 4 does not specify how the final separation of anhydrite from brine is to be effected, but claims 5 and 6 require centrifugal separation. According to the trial court's findings and the company's brief in this court, the common nexus among all of these claims, and the nugget of patentable invention if any is to be found here, resides primarily in the speed with which the entire process is accomplished. (I App. 216-18; Brief for International Salt Co. at 24.) For present purposes we shall not consider the claims separately, but rather shall aggregate them in the manner most favorable to the plaintiff; thus, the following discussion will proceed upon the assumption that the claimed process involves an upflow dissolver, operating at the specified rapid flow rate, followed by centrifugal separation. 11 The principal references 4 to prior art relied upon by the Patent Office and the trial court are two patents which, for convenience will be referred to as 'Courthope' 5 and 'Laughlin.' 6 The Courthope patent involves a dissolving apparatus designed to remove anhydrite and other impurities from brine. In general, it is built around an upflow dissolver which has the solvent 'pulsating' rather than flowing uniformly through the bed of salt; the pulsating action causes anhydrite particles to settle into a chamber underneath the bed of rock salt. The brine is piped out of the top of the dissolving chamber into a settling tank and then overflows into a filter chamber, which further removes solid impurities from the brine. Thus, although the movement is slower and the results are accomplished differently, the basic underlying concept in Courthope, as in the present claim, is a two-step process of dissolving and separation. More pertinent to the present case, however, is the following language in the Courthope patent: 12 The rate of leaching (dissolving) of the calcium sulfate in the dissolution water or brine is of course a function of the length of time of contact and of the speed of dissolution liquid flow, as well as the degree of concentration of the sulfate particles in the salt bed. Further, it is generally known that    calcium sulfate    is more soluble in brine than in water but is most soluble in brine ranging    between 50% And 80% Saturation. Therefore, it follows that in order to produce a purer brine without substantial sulfate content, it is necessary to remove the feed-in sulfate particles from contact with the dissolution liquid as quickly as possible when the latter is within the range of 50% To 80% Saturation condition. 13 (J.A. 251.) This is little more than a restatement of general scientific principles governing the physical properties of salt and calcium sulfate; as the company admits in its brief, 'the solubility characteristics of salt have long been so well known, and so thoroughly explored, that they have been put in 'tables', have been covered in 'dilution rules',    and may be 'readily found'.' (Brief for International Salt Co. at 11.) 14 The second major component taken from the prior art is the 'hydro-cyclone' or centrifugal separator described above, which is the subject matter of the Laughlin patent. Its usefulness in salt-making is described in the second paragraph of that patent: 15 In the purification of salts such as sodium chloride it is usually necessary to use large volumes of water which must be removed in order to recover the purified salt. Ordinarily this may be accomplished by evaporating solutions of the salt to obtain a dilute slurry, concentrating to a heavy slurry by means of large settling equipment, filtering to remove solid salt.    16    (One) object (of the patented separator) is to provide a means for the concentration of slurries which is simple, efficient, and suitable for rapid and continuous operation. 17 (II App. 246.) Further statements in the Laughlin patent indicate that the device is useful for different kinds of separation, depending upon the speed with which it is operated. Thus, it is said that 'the rate at which the slurry is fed may be regulated so as to obtain the desired degree of separation,' and that 'the degree of concentration may be controlled by regulating the rate of concentrate removal.' With suitable regulation,' the patent points out, 'our invention may also be effectively used as a classifier.' (Id. at 246-247.) 18 The 'differences between the prior art and the claims at issue,' 7 then, reside in the selection of those familiar components which permit maximum speed at each stage of the operation. That fast flow rates at the dissolving stage would cause the anhydrite to be 'entrained' or carried along in the solvent was not merely obvious, but a simple matter of scientific fact; that the brine would become more contaminated the longer the anhydrite remained in it was also knowledge which was in the public domain; finally, that centrifugal separation was a practical means of rapidly removing solids from liquids was also known to the art. 8 In light of these teachings, we do not think that the plaintiff's claimed invention evidences the 'synergistic result' or 'effect greater than the sum of the several effects taken separately' which is required for patentability. Anderson's-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co., 396 U.S. 57, 61, 90 S.Ct. 305, 24 L.Ed.2d 258 (1969) see also Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equip. Corp., 340 U.S. 147, 152, 71 S.Ct. 127, 95 L.Ed. 162 (1950). At the same time, we cannot conclude that the 'secondary considerations' bearing on the ultimate legal question of obviousness which are enumerated in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17-18, 86 S.Ct. 684, 15 L.Ed.2d 545 (1966), point toward an opposite conclusion. There the Court stated that subsidiary factors such as 'commercial success, long felt but unresolved needs, failure of others, etc., might be utilized to give light to the circumstances surrounding the origin of the subject matter sought to be patented.' In the instant case the district court made no findings on these issues in either of its two opinions (I J.A. 89-94, 214-19), and the evidence contained in the record on appeal is at best equivocal. The company's brief admits that there is 'limited actual public acceptance' of the process in question, while marshalling a formidable array of descriptive adjectives to extol its economic potential. (Brief for International Salt Co. at 28-29.) We think that the record evidence cited in support of these optimistic claims is insufficient to support an inference of patentability. Similarly, the company's discussion of shortcomings in prior processes and apparatus, 9 some of which are nearly a century old, fails to indicate which of the described inventions were designed to produce high-purity brine for industrial uses, or to set forth with particularity the length or intensity of the salt industry's efforts to solve the problems which Kaufmann's process allegedly alleviates. Cf. American Steel & Wire Co. of New Jersey v. Coe, 70 App.D.C. 138, 140-141, 105 F.2d 17, 19 (1939). 19 Since we have concluded that the claimed invention, even when viewed in the light most favorable to the company, must be deemed obvious as a matter of law, it follows that the individual claims must fail. Accordingly, we hold that the district court erred by concluding that the company was entitled to a patent on claims 5 and 6, and dismissing claim 4 without prejudice. Its judgment must therefore be reversed. 20 Reversed.