Court Opinion

ID: 9451365
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:15:45.487388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:41.769921
License: Public Domain

SMITH, Judge
(concurring), with whom MARTIN, Judge, joins.
The weakness of appellants’ case is manifest. They conceived the invention in issue subsequent to appellee and filed their patent application subsequent to ap-pellee’s parent application. Appellants’ proofs of an asserted actual reduction to practice establish a date subsequent to the date of appellee’s constructive reduction to practice.
While appellee failed to prove an actual reduction to practice to the board’s satisfaction, priority of the invention was awarded on the basis of appellee being the first to establish a constructive reduction to practice. To prevail here, appellants must establish that appellee was improperly given the benefit of the earlier filing date of a parent application. They seek to do so by asserting that appellee’s applications
can not, under the applicable law, be taken or regarded as complete and allowable applications and that Olin is not entitled to the filing date of his parent application * * * for a constructive reduction to practice of the count.
The theory of appellants’ case is that if it can be shown that Olin did not file “complete and allowable” applications, appellee is not entitled to rely upon them to establish a constructive reduction to practice. In this case appellants, by reason of their filing date, would then be entitled to the award of priority. The arguments urged and authorities cited in support of appellants’ theory are confused and I do not find them to be persuasive.
Appellants assert that appellee’s applications are not “complete and allowable” essentially for two reasons: (1), Olin did not disclose in his application that the product made by the process defined by the count was “dangerous” because of *1021its usefulness as a convulsant agent;1 and (2) while the count relates to a process, Olin did not actually make the products which he stated in his specification could be prepared from the product of the process.
As authority for the proposition that appellee failed to file a “complete and allowable” application, appellants cite 35 U.S.C. § 112, 35 U.S.C. § 282, and Union Carbide & Carbon Corp. v. Stuart Laboratories, Inc., 194 F.2d 823, (3rd Cir. 1952). These authorities will be considered individually.
First, considering 35 U.S.C. § 112, appellants argue that because appellee failed to disclose that the product made by the process was useful as a convulsant, it follows that the disclosure failed to set forth, “in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art” to “make and use” the process. I fail to understand the relationship between such cause and effect reasoning. Appellants admit that the appel-lee’s disclosure does teach one of ordinary skill in the art how to practice the process defined by the count. It seems to me, therefore, that this satisfies the terms of section 112. Swain et al. v. Crittendon, 332 F.2d 820, 51 CCPA 1459.
Appellants’ reliance on section 112 is unfounded for another reason. The board in its opinion found that appellee’s right to the filing date of his parent application was “not in dispute here.” That is to say, appellee is entitled under 35 U.S.C. § 120 to rely on the filing date of his parent application. This would seem to be tantamount to a finding that the terms of 35 U.S.C. § 112 were satisfied by the parent application. See Swain, supra. I am unable to understand how appellants can consistently concede that section 120 is satisfied and yet argue that section 112 has not been complied with.
As the majority opinion notes, we are first required to assume that the matters raised by appellants are ancillary to priority. I would add that we are also asked to assume that while the conditions of 35 U.S.C. § 120 have been met by appellee, we are expected to go further and decide whether appellee’s parent application was “complete and allowable” as filed, for alleged failure to comply with 35 U.S.C. § 112. The Patent Office has not raised any question about the compliance of ap-pellee’s parent application with the conditions of section 112. It seems to me on the present record that appellee’s parent application complies with section 112 and that appellee was properly permitted to rely upon its filing date as appellee’s date of a constructive reduction to practice.
Appellants also allege, without setting forth any explanation or reasoning, that the terms of 35 U.S.C. § 282 have not been complied with. Independent investigation reveals that section 282 provides as a defense in an infringement suit the “ [invalidity of the patent * * *' on any ground specified in part II of this title [Patentability of inventions and grant of patents] as a condition for patentability,” and “ [invalidity of the patent * * * for failure to comply with any requirements of sections 112 or 251 [Reissue of defective patents] of this title.” I am at a loss to see how these sections aid appellants in estab*1022lishing that appellee’s parent application as filed was incomplete. It seems to me that appellants’ unsupported and broad allegation that Part II of Title 35 (35 U.S.C. §§ 100-188), has not been complied with, is insufficient as a matter of law to warrant consideration.
Finally, appellants cite Union Carbide, supra. In that case the question was whether the description of the process in the patent was sufficient to enable a person skilled in that art to practice the invention. The court generalized broadly that where “the patentee omitted elements which he knew were important, fraud will be implied by the fact-finder.” 194 F.2d at 827. The defendants had argued that the invention would have worked better if the patentee had disclosed certain procedural steps which, admittedly, at the time of the filing of the application were of questionable value. The court also generalized that a patentee must disclose “the whole truth relative to their invention.” The court affirmed the judgment of the trial court which found the patent valid and infringed.
Broad generalizations drawn from prior decisions solve few problems and often are cited incorrectly for propositions which they do not support. The issue in dispute in Union Carbide was whether the terms of 35 U.S.C. § 112 had been satisfied. As we have previously noted, appellants concede this issue here. Thus appellants’ reliance on Union Carbide seems to have been misplaced.
The theory of appellants’ arguments appears to have been extracted from the following statement concerning Constructive Reduction to Practice to be found in Rivise & Caesar, Interference Law & Practice, Vol. 1, Sec. 158, at p. 497. It is there stated:
The third prerequisite [for an applicant to be entitled to rely upon the filing date of a patent application for his reduction to practice] is that the application relied upon for a constructive reduction to practice must be one that could result in a valid patent if prosecuted to final allowance.
Appellants, while footnoting the above statement with no particular emphasis, argue that the alleged deficiencies they have “found” in appellee’s application are uncontroverted proof that appellee’s application, if prosecuted to final allowance, could not result in a valid patent. The statement from Rivise & Caesar and appellants’ reliance thereon is not supported by reference to any statutory provision or by case law. Rivise & Caesar refers the reader to section 13 in which the authors discuss and cite cases concerned with the alteration of an application after execution. This area of law was extensively reviewed by Judge Rich in Vandenberg v. Reynolds, 242 F.2d 761, 44 CCPA 873. Therein it was determined that the junior party was entitled to attack the sufficiency of the senior party’s application as filed, on the grounds that it had been altered after execution, where the senior party relied on the filing date of the thus altered application as a constructive reduction to practice. It was there reasoned that a decision on priority rested on the sufficiency of the application as filed and the critical question raised, based on the allegations, was whether the application was void ab initio. An application burdened with such a defect could not, under the law, be relied upon as establishing a constructive reduction to practice because there was no sworn support for the altered application.
From the foregoing, it seems clear that appellants must have taken the statement from Rivise & Caesar out of context as the authors apparently intended only to cover the area of law which was more fully developed in Van-denberg, supra.
The dispositive issue here for decision is priority of inventorship. It is not whether appellee’s parent application would result in a valid patent if prosecuted to final allowance.
In the instant case, priority of inven-torship was awarded to Olin by the board because it found that Olin was the first *1023to conceive the invention and file an application on it with no argument to the contrary. Priority thus was determined on the basis of Olin’s first conception plus his first constructive reduction to practice. This clearly is an adequate basis upon which to make a valid award of priority.
I do not question the authorities cited by the majority. It seems to me, however, that this appeal presents questions of patent law which are broader in scope than the majority opinion has chosen to deal with, hence my concurrence. I would predicate affirmance of the appealed decision on the failure of the arguments advanced by appellants in showing why appellee’s parent application was so “incomplete” as to be insufficient as a matter of law.

. This is tlie apparent source of conflict between the parties. Olin’s agent stated in a report dated August 29, 1955 that “violent clonic convulsions appeared in the mice within twenty (20) seconds,” after inhaling the product made by the process. Olin’s agent testified that this was “opposite to what was anticipated.” Olin testified that he had expected the product would be “an anesthetic of low toxicity.” Olin filed an application disclosing the product and the process. He did not disclose or claim use of the product as a convulsant. Krantz also conducted experiments with mice in January, 1956, and discovered the convulsant properties of the product. They then conducted experiments with humans beginning in September, 1956, and finally filed an application disclosing and claiming the process, the product made by the process and the use of the product as a convulsant agent. The record shows that the Patent Office, prior to the interference, considered the product to be unpat-entable over the prior art and refused to add a count, upon appellants’ motion, defining the product, to this interference.