Court Opinion

ID: 9463591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:10:26.665538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:10.735149
License: Public Domain

VAN GRAAFEILAND, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
Reduced to its bare bones, the “invention”, for which appellees have been granted a 17-year monopoly, consists of filling a narrow space between two pieces of metal with a melted non-magnetic material such as glass through capillary action. The majority say this was conceived in a “flash of brilliance”. I find it to be simply an adaptation of a physical process familiar to every embryonic schoolboy scientist who has watched his blotter absorb ink.1 At the very least, I agree with the District Court’s finding that “the prior art indicates the widespread use of capillary action to fill minute gaps.”2
*725The importance which my colleagues attach to the fact that the gap in this case is preset escapes me completely. Every gap between two intentionally placed objects is preset. The use of shims to determine the width of the setting was less than novel and was clearly part of the prior art.3
Of course, for capillarity to operate, the liquid involved must be of a type which “wets” the material which surrounds it, in order that the molecules of the liquid cling together on the face of the material and pull the liquid with it. However, the prior art clearly showed that molten glass “wets” ferrite,4 so that capillary action was an obvious and expected result of a combination of the two.5
I do not read the record below to indicate that the capillary process was the culmination of years of research aimed at solving a pressing problem. There was no crying industrial demand for the process, either prior to the alleged invention or within a reasonable time thereafter. As the District Court stated, secondary indicia of nonobviousness were meager. Proof that, between 1954 and 1969, four patent applications were filed for the manufacture of magnetic heads to be used in the infant field of tape recorders and computers falls far short of establishing the decade of “continuing experimentation” which my brothers say took place and does not give rise to the inference of invention. Paramount Publix Corp. v. American Tri-Ergon Corp., 294 U.S. 464, 476, 55 S.Ct. 449, 79 L.Ed. 997 (1935). Even assuming the existence of a long-felt want and the failure of others to meet that want, this is relevant only as a secondary test for obviousness and does not create patentability where invention is lacking. Anderson’s-Black Rock, Inc. v. Pavement Salvage Co., 396 U.S. 57, 61, 90 S.Ct. 305, 24 L.Ed.2d 258 (1969); Hadfield v. Ryan Equipment Co., 456 F.2d 1218, 1221 (8th Cir. 1972). According to the testimony of Matthijs Vrolijks, one of the inventors, a committee was formed in 1960 or 1961 at N.V. Philips to “optimize” the Duinker procedure by improving its productive yield. Within a matter of months, this result was achieved by using the well-recognized capillary process.
In applying the § 103 test for obviousness, one should picture the inventors working in their shop with the prior art references hanging on the walls around them. Esso Research & Engineering Co. v. Kahn & Co., 379 F.Supp. 205, 211 (D.Conn.1974), aff’d per curiam on the opinion below, 513 F.2d 1341 (2d Cir. 1975). On the wall directly before them would be inscribed the long-known and well-understood physical principles of capillarity which, like Boyle’s Law and Dalton’s Law in Esso Research, supra, the inventors must be regarded as knowing. On the walls to their left would be the patents utilizing the capillary fill process, including German patent, No. 10546, used in manufacturing magnetic recording heads, the Grant patent, No. 2,500,-748,6 the DeJean patent, No. 3,304,358, the Feinberg patent, No. 3,341,939 in the closely related magnetics field and the Reichenbaum patent, No. 3,029,505 in the electronics field. Also on that wall would be the readily available learning concerning the flowing *726properties of molten glass, the Duinker patent, No. 3,094,772, and the Pfost patent, No. 3,283,396, showing that molten glass will wet ferrite, and the Hill patent, No. 3,065,-571 showing the use of capillarity for the insertion of molten glass in the gaps of electrical discharge devices. On their right would be the Duinker patent, No. 3,117,367, showing the use of shims or spacers to preset the gap into which capillarity would draw the molten glass.
A glance around the room would disclose “all the elements of [Vrolijks’] device, both individually and in combination”. Esso Research & Engineering Co. v. Kahn & Co., supra, 513 F.2d at 1341. His invention did not push back the frontiers of scientific knowledge, Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket Equipment Corp., 340 U.S. 147, 154-55, 71 S.Ct. 127, 95 L.Ed. 162 (1950) (Douglas, J., concurring), but merely utilized the existing fund of public knowledge for a new and obvious purpose. Dow Chemical Co. v. Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co., 324 U.S. 320, 326-28, 65 S.Ct. 647, 89 L.Ed. 973 (1945). I believe that the private monopoly granted herein is “at odds with the inherent free nature of disclosed ideas” and has been too freely given. Graham v. John Deere Co. of Kansas City, 383 U.S. 1, 9, 86 S.Ct. 684, 689, 15 L.Ed.2d 545 (1966).
I would reverse.

. The schoolboy scientist, were he willing to spend five minutes on research, would have learned that capillarity works most effectively in narrow spaces. See, e.g., J. Bikerman, Surface Chemistry 361 (1958).

. Earlier patents disclosing the use of capillarity included German patent No. 10546, used in manufacturing magnetic recording heads, the Grant patent, No. 2,500,748, the DeJean patent, No. 3,304,358, the Feinberg patent, No. 3,341,-939 in the magnetics .field and the Reichenbaum patent, No. 3,029,505, in the electronics field. “[A] patent claiming a device that has already been put to use, albeit in a different manner, is invalid; in order to be valid over the prior art, it must claim not novel use, but novel conception.” Beckman Instruments, Inc. v. Chemtronics, Inc., 439 F.2d 1369, 1375 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 956, 91 S.Ct. 353, 27 L.Ed.2d 264 (1970).

. Duinker, No. 3,117,367.

. Duinker, No. 3,094,772 and Pfost, No. 3,283,-396.

. Despite the majority’s reference to Zinke, as authoritive prior art, one hour’s research in the library would have taught the inventors that, at a temperature of 1,000 degrees, the differences in the mobilities of different glasses are very large, see J. Bikerman, supra, note 1, at 152, and that, although glass is a “slow motion” liquid, it has flow properties on an extended time scale similar to those of ordinary liquids. See G. Jones, Glass 8 (1956). Moreover, the Hill patent, No. 3,065,571, filed for in 1957, clearly utilized the capillarity of molten glass in the manufacture of electrical discharge devices and electrical contacts. In any event, respondent's patent does not limit its claims to molten glass, claim No. 1 specifying simply the use of a “non-magnetic material”.

. The District Court described Grant in the following language:
In plain English, the patent discloses a structure consisting of two magnetic parts separated by a minute permanent non-magnetic gap, which also bonds the two together, created by flowing non-magnetic material between the two parts by capillary action.