Court Opinion

ID: 9486093
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 11:37:39.216031+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:51:31.522347
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
I share the conclusion that literal infringement is not before us, that infringement does not lie under the doctrine of equivalents, and that attorney fees were incorrectly granted. I write separately lest dicta in the panel majority’s discussion of the doctrine of equivalents be misinterpreted as enlarging the scope of prosecution history estoppel.
In this case certain claim scope was can-celled during patent prosecution, after a rejection based on prior art. The patentee had not overcome the rejection by making a sufficient showing of superior properties. This action resulted in a classical prosecution history estoppel, deciding the case.

Grounds of Estoppel

The district court decided the equivalency of Jessop’s alloys, based on the standard criteria of what had been invented, what had been claimed, the prior art, the prosecution record, and what the accused infringer had done. It was not disputed that Jessop’s alloys were of the same multi-metal composition as those claimed by Haynes, varying only in the small difference in the percentage of chromium. Jessop conceded that its alloys performed the same function in the same way to achieve the same result of improved corrosion resistance. Jessop also conceded that it had adjusted the chromium content in order to avoid Haynes’ claim to “about 22” percent chromium.
Haynes (through its predecessor Cabot) had cancelled its broader claims after the examiner’s rejection on the Scheil patent was not overcome with sufficient experimental evidence of superior properties, and was unsuccessfully appealed to the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. The district *1581court held that Haynes was estopped to assert a range of equivalents that reached the range of ,20.74-20.81 percent chromium; that is, that Haynes was estopped from reaching the Jessop alloys.
In appealing this holding, Haynes makes the argument that the prior art did not require the restriction to “about 22” percent chromium, and that the Board’s holding of unpatentability of the broader claims was due solely to the absence of sufficient experimental data to support the broader claims. Haynes states that the data now before the district court and this court show that the properties described in the Haynes specification are indeed possessed by Jessop’s alloys. Haynes thus argues that the patentee is not estopped from asserting equivalency.
The panel majority first, appropriately, rejected Haynes’ argument on the ground that the rejection was indeed based on the prior art, and that Haynes’ failure to support the broader claims left them correctly rejected on the Seheil reference, producing a classical estoppel. I join in that conclusion — which should end the matter. However, the majority then discusses, as a ground of estoppel, that Haynes could have generated or presented additional supporting data at the time of patent prosecution, but did not do so. The majority also deems it significant that Haynes did not file a continuation or reissue application after the Board’s decision, in order to continue prosecution with additional data.
I do not think that failure to continue prosecution beyond full examination is or should be a ground of estoppel. I am concerned lest these remarks present the impression that a new basis for estoppel is being promulgated based on actions the pat-entee could have taken to obtain broader claims, but did not. It would be new to the law of estoppel to require that negative inferences be drawn from what the patentee might have done but did not. I can think of no interest that would be served by creating a new field of litigation concerning whether the patentee could or should have generated and presented additional experimental data at the time of prosecution, or by continuation or reissue application, as a prerequisite to an assertion of infringement through equivalency. To require or infer that the inventor must keep the patent application from issuance while refiling and reprosecuting, lest the opportunity to avoid estoppel be forever forfeited, itself raises important policy questions. Also, I need not remind the panel majority that broader claims can not be obtained by reissue after two years, even if the patentee can persuade the Office that the original claim scope was due to error.

Policy Considerations

The broadening of prosecution history es-toppel is a corollary to the narrowing of the doctrine of equivalents. There is a policy component to such holdings, of importance to the technology community. Before a court undertakes to modify longstanding law and practice, even in dictum, it should know the effect of this change on those the law is intended to serve. Caution is required, lest our inexperience with the ways of industrial innovation leads us to adopt a purported solution of unforeseen consequences.
Patent protection, if easily circumvented, does not enhance the incentive for industrial innovation. Richard C. Levin et al., in Appropriating the Returns from Industrial Research and Development, 3 Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 783 (1987), thus criticizes the effectiveness of the patent system as an innovation incentive. These policy issues are of particular concern to this court, which is charged with the body of law whose purpose is to support creativity and innovation. If it is desired to enlarge the restrictions on a patentee’s recourse to the doctrine of equivalents, by stretching the grounds of estoppel, this should be explored by the technology community, not legislated by this court.