Opinion ID: 808959
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The ruling of obviousness

Text: Union Rich argues that any error was harmless because, whatever Mr. Korchmar might have presented if he had been allowed to testify, the claims are invalid for obviousness. The Eleventh Circuit guides that errors in admission or exclusion of evidence may be tolerated unless they affect the substantial rights of the parties; that is, unless the errors “have a ‘substantial influence’ on the outcome of a case or leave ‘grave doubt’ as to whether they affected the outcome of a case.” Frazier, 387 F.3d at 1266 n.20 (quoting Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764-65 (1946)). 28 U.S.C. §2111 states that courts “shall give judgment after OUTSIDE THE BOX v. TRAVEL CADDY 20 an examination of the record without regard to errors or defects which do not affect the substantial rights of the parties.” See also Fed. R. Evid. 103(a) (“A party may claim error in a ruling to admit or exclude evidence only if the error affects a substantial right of the party . . . .”). In Medtronic Inc. v. Intermedics, Inc., 799 F.2d 734, 741 (Fed. Cir. 1986), this court sustained the district court’s exclusion of some testimony of the defendant’s expert on issues of obviousness and infringement, for although the district court excluded the testimony on the criticized ground that the expert “did not personally have knowledge of the prosecution of the patents in suit,” the exclusion was not prejudicial because the testimony was cumulative. In contrast, all of the testimony of Mr. Korchmar was excluded. The testimony related to evidence that could have affected the outcome, for the patents were held invalid on the very ground for which Mr. Korchmar’s testimony was proffered. There is no suggestion that the excluded testimony was cumulative. A substantial right was indeed affected, for obviousness depends on evidentiary facts found and evaluated from the viewpoint of a person in the field of the invention, as of the time of the invention. Precedent recognizes the pitfalls of judicial hindsight exercised at the time of litigation, the Court cautioning in KSR that “[a] factfinder should be aware, of course, of the distortion caused by hindsight bias and must be cautious of arguments reliant upon ex post reasoning.” 550 U.S. at 421. See also, e.g., Diamond Rubber, 220 U.S. at 434-35 (“Many things, and the patent law abounds in illustrations, seem obvious after they have been done, and, in the light of the accomplished result, it is often a matter of wonder how they so long eluded the search of the discoverer and set at defiance the speculations of inventive genius.” (quotation omitted)); Arkie Lures, Inc. v. Gene Larew Tackle, Inc., 119 F.3d 953, 956 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (“Good ideas may well appear ‘obvious’ 21 OUTSIDE THE BOX v. TRAVEL CADDY after they have been disclosed, despite having been previously unrecognized.”). In determining whether it would have been obvious to structure the Travel Caddy tool carry cases by selecting and combining components from nearly half a dozen different designs, the perspective of a person in this field of technology can be significant. For example, the patents state that these tool carry cases are structured to carry heavy tools, and attribute this strength to the novel use of a continuous closed-loop binding, an adaptation that the district court found to be described by the continuous beading in the Ziff reference, which is not concerned with heavy tools. Travel Caddy points to its combination of structural strength with economical assembly and a pleasing appearance, the commercial success of its product, and the ultimate tribute of copying by a competitor. Travel Caddy’s offer of proof stated that Mr. Korchmar would have testified that the cited references not only did not show all the elements of the claims, but also that they did not suggest the selection and combination achieved by Travel Caddy. T.Tr. 329:3 to 331:7 (Feb. 5, 2008), J.A. 567173. Such evidence is relevant to the question of obviousness particularly in crowded fields, where small differences may produce a nonobvious advance and commensurate commercial success. Such pragmatic considerations are better understood by artisans in the field, than by judges. See In re Meng, 492 F.2d 843, 848 (CCPA 1974) (“[S]implicity, particularly in an old and crowded art, may argue for rather than against patentability. Progress in the crowded arts, usually made in small increments, is as important as it is in arts at the pioneer stage.” (citation omitted)). See also Unigene Labs., Inc. v. Apotex, Inc., 655 F.3d 1352, 1360-61 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (the inquiry under §103 is not whether the OUTSIDE THE BOX v. TRAVEL CADDY 22 claimed invention is “sufficiently simple to appear obvious to judges after the discovery is finally made”). The Court has explained that “[t]he emphasis on nonobviousness is one of inquiry, not quality” of the advance. Graham, 383 U.S. at 17. The uniform thread of such inquiry is that it must be made in the context of the field of the invention. While “the common sense of those skilled in the art demonstrates why some combinations would have been obvious where others would not,” Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1161 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 416), the determination is made not after observing what the inventor actually did, but in light of the state of the art before the invention was made. Travel Caddy argues that, although many others have designed tool carry cases, the design achieved by Travel Caddy provided characteristics new to this crowded field, characteristics that were recognized by the market success of these products. To properly weigh that argument, evidence of commercial response may be the most probative. See Ashland Oil, Inc. v. Delta Resins & Refractories, Inc., 776 F.2d 281, 306 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (“Secondary considerations may be the most pertinent, probative, and revealing evidence available to the decision maker in reaching a conclusion on the obviousness/nonobviousness issue.”). Although Union Rich asks this court to decide the question of nonobviousness on our own, the exclusion of the expert’s testimony leaves us with no better basis for decision than was available to the trial court. Thus we remand for redetermination of the issue of obviousness, on the entirety of the evidence includingexpert testimony. 5 The district 5 On appeal, Travel Caddy argues that it was de- prived of its right to trial by jury on the factual issues underlying the court’s obviousness determination. Specifically, Travel Caddy argues that the district court sua sponte 23 OUTSIDE THE BOX v. TRAVEL CADDY court’s rulings of invalidity of all of the claims of the ’992 patent and claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-22, 24-29, and 31-32 of the ’104 patent are vacated.