Opinion ID: 599
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Majority's Proposed Written Description Test

Text: I credit the majority for acknowledging that the possession test has never been very enlightening and for attempting to clarify that possession as shown in the disclosure should be an objective inquiry into the four-corners of the specification. Maj. Op. at 1351. Yet, given the court's concern for public notice, the opinion fails to set the boundaries for compliance with its separate written description test. Commentators have noted our use of variable and confusing vocabulary to delineate the test: that the specification demonstrate possession, that the inventor invented what is claimed, or that a person of ordinary skill be able to visualize or recognize the claimed subject matter. Donald S. Chisum, 3 Chisum on Patents § 7.04[1][e] (2009). Today, the majority confirms the notion that the specification must show that the inventor actually invented the invention claimed, Maj. Op. at 1351, but then says that actual `possession' or reduction to practice outside of the specification is not enough, id. at 1352. If the specification's four corners control not the inventor's subjective beliefs or activitiesthen an actually invented standard should be irrelevant. Moreover, § 112, paragraph 2 already requires separately that the claims, once issued, objectively claim the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention. See Solomon v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., 216 F.3d 1372, 1379-80 (Fed.Cir.2000). The language that the majority uses to explain possession as shown in the disclosure not only fails to justify a separate test, it also fails to distinguish the test for written description from the requirements for enablement. [T]he level of detail required to satisfy the written description requirement, according to the majority, varies depending on the nature and scope of the claims and on the complexity and predictability of the relevant technology. Maj. Op. at 1351. These considerations, however, mirror the Wands factors for enablement, which include the nature of the invention, the breadth of the claims, and the predictability or unpredictability of the art. 858 F.2d at 737. The court attempts to distinguish enablement by observing that although written description and enablement often rise and fall together, requiring a written description of the invention plays a vital role in curtailing claims that do not require undue experimentation to make and use, and thus satisfy enablement, but that have not been invented, and thus cannot be described. Maj. Op. at 1352 (emphasis added). Yet, if a person of ordinary skill is enabled to make and use a novel and nonobvious invention clearly recited in the claims, I fail to see how that invention can be said to have not been invented or be in need of some undefined level of additional description.