Opinion ID: 621312
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Joint Inventorship

Text: Inventorship is a question of law that we review without deference. Vanderbilt Univ. v. ICOS Corp., 601 F.3d 1297, 1303 (Fed.Cir.2010). We review the [district court's] underlying findings of fact for clear error. Id. Because the issuance of a patent creates a presumption that the named inventors are the true and only inventors, the burden of showing misjoinder or nonjoinder of inventors is a heavy one and must be proved by clear and convincing evidence. Bd. of Educ. v. Am. BioSci., Inc., 333 F.3d 1330, 1337 (Fed.Cir.2003) (citations omitted). A joint invention is the product of a collaboration between two or more persons working together to solve the problem addressed. Burroughs Wellcome Co. v. Barr Labs., Inc., 40 F.3d 1223, 1227 (Fed.Cir.1994). People may be joint inventors even though they do not physically work on the invention together or at the same time, and even though each does not make the same type or amount of contribution. 35 U.S.C. § 116. Thus, the critical question for joint conception is who conceived, as that term is used in the patent law, the subject matter of the claims at issue. Ethicon, Inc. v. U.S. Surgical Corp., 135 F.3d 1456, 1460 (Fed.Cir.1998). A contribution to one claim is enough. Id. The statute does not set forth the minimum quality or quantity of contribution required for joint inventorship. Burroughs, 40 F.3d at 1227. Each joint inventor, however, must contribute in some significant manner to the conception of the invention. Fina Oil & Chem. Co. v. Ewen, 123 F.3d 1466, 1473 (Fed.Cir.1997). Conception of a chemical compound requires knowledge of both the specific chemical structure of the compound and an operative method of making it. Id. The district court issued extensive findings of fact and concluded that Falana's contribution of the Synthesis Protocol was sufficient contribution to the conception of the claimed invention as to render him a joint inventor on the patent. The Defendants do not challenge any of the district court's findings of fact, but instead, only challenge the district court's legal determination that Falana was a joint inventor. Specifically, the Defendants contend that even if Falana contributed the Synthesis Protocol method, that contribution is insufficient to make him a co-inventor of the claims of the '789 Patent, which are all directed to chemical compositions and not methods. The Defendants also contend that Falana synthesized Compound 7, not Compound 9, and that Compound 7 does not fall within the scope of the claims. Falana responds that he was the one who developed the Synthesis Protocol, which made it possible to make a previously-unknown genus of compounds, to wit, naphthyl substituted TADDOLs. This was the method used by Falana to synthesize Compound 7, the method used by Seed to synthesize Compound 9, and the only method disclosed in the '789 Patent for making the claimed compounds. Finally, Falana contends that because he contributed the method of making the novel class of compounds claimed in the '789 Patent, his contribution to conception was sufficient to make him a joint inventor. The question before this court is whether a putative inventor who envisioned the structure of a novel chemical compound and contributed to the method of making that compound is a joint inventor of a claim covering that compound. The Defendants assert that American BioScience compels the answer no to the question before us. The Defendants contend that American BioScience held that a putative inventor's contribution of a method for making chemical compounds is legally irrelevant to whether he is a joint inventor on a patent that does not claim any method of making those compounds. Appellant's Br. 28 (quoting Am. BioSci., 333 F.3d at 1341). This reading of American BioScience is erroneous and the facts of this case are manifestly distinct. See Fina, 123 F.3d at 1473 (The determination of whether a person is a joint inventor is fact specific and no bright-line standard will suffice in every case.). In American BioScience, the court was faced with choosing between two competing groups of inventors. Am. BioSci., 333 F.3d at 1340; see also Vanderbilt University, 601 F.3d at 1306. The passage quoted by the Defendants concerns whether Nadizadeh, a putative co-inventor and scientist for FSU, was a joint inventor on the patent when Tao, named co-inventor and a scientist for ABI, allegedly used Nadizadeh's secret method to make the claimed compounds. Am. BioSci., 333 F.3d at 1341. There was no indication, however, that Nadizadeh's secret method actually made any of the claimed compounds and thus he did not directly contribute to the conception of any of the claimed compounds. Id. Even if Nadizadeh developed a method of making similar compounds, it was of no consequence because neither that method nor those similar compounds themselves were claimed in the patent. Id. at 1342. Indeed, Nadizadeh neither made the claimed compounds nor attempted to make them, and he did not have a firm and definite idea of the claimed combination as a whole. Id. (emphasis added). Thus, the court concluded that simply teaching skills or general methods that somehow facilitate a later invention, without more, does not render one a co [-]inventor. Id. (emphasis added). American Bioscience did not hold that a putative inventor's contribution of the method for making a novel genus of claimed compounds is irrelevant on the question of inventorship of the patent. As explained above, the conception of a chemical compound necessarily requires knowledge of a method for making that compound. Fina, 123 F.3d at 1473. In some circumstances, the method of making a compound will require nothing more than the use of ordinary skill in the art. In those circumstances, the contribution of that method would simply be [t]he basic exercise of the normal skill expected of one skilled in the art and would not normally be a sufficient contribution to amount to an act of joint inventorship. Id. (citing Sewall v. Walters, 21 F.3d 411, 416 (Fed.Cir. 1994)); cf. Oka v. Youssefyeh, 849 F.2d 581, 583 (Fed.Cir.1988) (stating in the interference context that [w]hen ... a method of making a compound with conventional techniques is a matter of routine knowledge among those skilled in the art, a compound has been deemed to have been conceived when it was described, and the question of whether the conceiver was in possession of a method of making it is simply not raised). Where the method requires more than the exercise of ordinary skill, however, the discovery of that method is as much a contribution to the compound as the discovery of the compound itself. This case is simply the application of the well-known principle that conception of a compound requires knowledge of both the chemical structure of the compound and an operative method of making it. Accordingly, this court holds that a putative inventor who envisioned the structure of a novel genus of chemical compounds and contributes the method of making that genus contributes to the conception of that genus. This holding does not mean that such an inventor necessarily has a right to claim inventorship of all species within that genus which are discovered in the future. Once the method of making the novel genus of compounds becomes public knowledge, it is then assimilated into the storehouse of knowledge that comprises ordinary skill in the art. Additionally, joint inventorship arises only when collaboration or concerted effort occursthat is, when the inventors have some open line of communication during or in temporal proximity to their inventive efforts. Eli Lilly & Co. v. Aradigm Corp., 376 F.3d 1352, 1359 (Fed.Cir.2004). Here, the district court concluded that Falana's contribution was greater than the exercise of ordinary skill. The district court made such a determination based on the documentary evidence before the court and the testimony of the named inventors themselves. [JA36-37] The district court was not persuaded by Seed's testimony that Falana's Synthesis Protocol was nothing more than the basic exercise of ordinary skill because it was simply old chemistry. Instead, the district court conclude[d] that the named inventors' post-lawsuit characterization of the meaning and accuracy of the contemporaneous physical evidence against Falana's joint inventorship [was] not credible. Opinion at 37 n. 22. The district court found that Falana developed the Synthesis Protocol to synthesize Compound 7, an SS enantiomer. The district court also found that, contrary to Seed's testimony, Falana did not develop the Synthesis Protocol by simply following the teachings of others. Opinion at 37. Compound 7 is a species within the genus of naphthyl substituted TADDOLsa previously unknown genus of chemical compounds. KDI regarded Compound 7, within that genus, as a great improvement because it represented significant progress. Once Falana left the team, the team continued researching specific compounds within this novel genus. Using Falana's Synthesis Protocol, Seed synthesized Compound 9, an RR enantiomer within that genus. Compound 9 was similar to Compound 7, but exhibited greater temperature independence than that of Compound 7. Although the Defendants argue that Falana did not contribute to the conception of Compound 9 because Compound 9 was first synthesized after Falana left the team, this argument is inapposite. The claims of the '789 Patent are not limited to Compound 9. Instead, they claim a subset of the entire genus of naphthyl substituted TADDOLsthose which are RR enantiomers. Falana contributed to the conception of this genus by providing the team of which he was a part with the method for making these novel compounds. Falana's lack of contribution to the discovery of Compound 9 itself does not negate his contribution of the method used by the other inventors to make the genus of compounds covered by the claims at issue. The district court did not err in concluding that Falana's contribution of the method used by the team of which he was a part for making the claimed compounds was enough of a contribution to conception to pass the threshold required for joint inventorship. We therefore affirm the district court's determination.