Opinion ID: 474933
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Sweet Prosecution

Text: 10 Funded by an Army Signal Corps contract in the early 1960's, Sweet developed a technique for selective charging and deflection of individual ink droplets for an oscillograph, 617 F.Supp. at 1384-85, 228 USPQ at 66, which technique he used to create a high-speed ink-jet recorder. Id. 11 Sweet entered into a license with Minneapolis-Honeywell, which, in accordance with the agreement, prosecuted Sweet's patent application. 4 Lockwood Burton was Honeywell's in-house counsel prosecuting the Sweet application. 617 F.Supp. at 1385, 228 USPQ at 66. In a letter to Burton, dated May 16, 1963, Sweet characterized his invention, thus: [i]t seems to me that the most important part of the system is that portion that forms, charges, and projects the ink droplets. 617 F.Supp. at 1392, 228 USPQ at 71. 12 Sweet's application was filed on July 31, 1963, SN 298,996. 617 F.Supp. at 1387, 228 USPQ at 67. The application did not include citations to the Magarvey articles, the Waage article, or the Winston patent. See 617 F.Supp. at 1392, 228 USPQ at 71. 13 At least by late 1963 or early 1964, Sweet knew of the Magarvey articles. Id. In March, 1964, Sweet published a report entitled High Frequency Oscillography with Electrostatically Deflected Ink Jets, listing as references the Magarvey articles and the Waage article. Id.; see Mead, 521 F.Supp. at 172, 213 USPQ at 334. 14 Before the PTO acted on the application, Honeywell filed a continuation-in-part (CIP) application on March 25, 1964, No. 354,659, which eventually matured into the Sweet patent. 617 F.Supp. at 1387, 228 USPQ at 67. This application also did not include a citation to the above references. 617 F.Supp. at 1392, 228 USPQ at 71. 15 In September, 1964, Sweet submitted to Review of Scientific Instruments an article in which he stated that, [r]ecently, Magarvey and Blackford ... have reported on techniques for forming, charging, and deflecting water drops, using methods similar to those described here. 617 F.Supp. at 1392, 228 USPQ at 71. 16 In late 1965, the firm of Flehr and Swain assumed responsibility for prosecution of Sweet's application. 17 On April 4, 1967, the patent examiner rejected numerous claims under 35 U.S.C. Secs. 102 and 103, but did not cite the Magarvey articles or Waage article. In response, on June 28, Sweet amended several of the claims and traversed the examiner's rejections on several of the others. Also on June 28, Sweet copied claims 32-42 from a patent, Lewis et al. (and later copied claims 43-48), and filed a Request for Declaration of Interference. In October of 1967, the examiner wrote attorney Flehr that claims 1-31 are allowed. 18 An interference was declared (No. 96,185), at which time the prosecution of the CIP application was suspended. During the interference proceedings, Flehr submitted numerous documents, including the 1964 Sweet report and subsequent Sweet article that cited the Magarvey articles, to support Sweet's right to make the counts. 617 F.Supp. at 1392, 228 USPQ at 71-72. In early 1970, the Board of Patent Interferences terminated the interference, holding that Sweet's specification did not support the counts. Id. 19 In April of 1970, Sweet and Flehr corresponded on the claims remaining in the application. 617 F.Supp. at 1392, 228 USPQ at 71. At that time, Sweet brought Waage to the attention of Flehr, stating that it was the closest prior art that I am aware of. Id. 20 Sweet amended his application in June of 1970. Claim 19 was amended to distinguish from Waage, but Flehr did not cite Waage to the examiner. Id. At the same time, Sweet cancelled the copied claims, substituted claims 49 and 50 for 14 and 15, and added new claims 51-53. The examiner issued an office action in July of 1970, rejecting claims 1-4, 6-9, 16, 17, 19, 25, 30, 31, and new claims 49, 51, and 52 as anticipated by or rendered obvious from M-B, M-T, and Hendricks, and rejected claims 50 and 53 for obviousness from the M-B reference in view of Jacob. See 617 F.Supp. at 1392, 228 USPQ at 72. The examiner stated that fourteen claims (claims 1-4, 6-9, 16, 17, 19, 25, 30, and 31), which were previously allowed are now rejected. 5 21 On October 5, 1970, Sweet cancelled rejected claim 16 (the broadest claim), substituted a new claim for claim 19, and amended the remaining claims, arguing, inter alia, that the publications cited did not anticipate or render obvious certain features of Sweet's invention. In traversing the examiner's rejections, Flehr referred to the Hendricks article as follows: The Hendricks publication in Journal of Colloid Science discloses apparatus for forming a jet spray which is somewhat similar to what is disclosed in Winston ... previously cited by the Examiner. See 617 F.Supp. at 1393, 228 USPQ at 72. Flehr continued: Appellant's invention does not employ a spray-type jet. On the contrary, appellant's invention produces uniformly sized and regularly spaced droplets which move in a single file. ... See id. 22 On October 9, 1970, the examiner and Flehr held a telephone conference in which an amendment to a claim was discussed, and Flehr then filed a supplemental amendment. The Notice of Allowance issued January 18, 1971, and the Sweet patent issued July 27, 1971, with 33 claims.