Court Opinion

ID: 9443702
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:28:11.978872+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:34.775919
License: Public Domain

GARRETT, Chief Judge
(concurring).
I do not think there is any teaching in the Delen patent that the wire mesh (the wire being made of metal) has a wicking effect. “Wicking effect,” as I understand it, is produced by capillary attraction, and I know of no metal which has the characteristic of capillary attraction.
I do not agree with the construction apparently placed upon the Burk et al. patent by the tribunals of the Patent Office (and seemingly approved by the majority of the court) to the effect that that patent attributes a wicking action to glass cloth, such as that named in claims 2 and 3. No reference to glass cloth appears in the claims of that patent, but the specification states:
“To feed liquid such [so] that it may film down on the surfaces of the plates or sheets S, various feeding apparatus may be applied, but a preferable form involves pieces or strips 12 of a wick-ing agent or a woven mesh, such as woven wire fabric, 'glass cloth, etc., these -being superposed above the top edges of the plates S * * *.”
It seems to me that the most reasonable construction of the foregoing is that strips of a wicking agent may be used, or a woven mesh, such as woven wire fabric, may be used, or glass cloth may be used, and that it was not meant to teach that glass cloth is a wicking agent. I do not recall having ever heard that glass, in any form, has absorptive or capillary qualities, but, in any event, the teaching of Burk et al. seems clearly to anticipate the glass cloth feature of claims 1 and 2. If non-absorptive in Burk et al. such cloth would be non-absorptive in those claims and vice versa.
As I view the references, the Delen patent teaches the flow of water in a thin film over the surface of wire, and Burk et al. teach that glass-cloth may be used instead of wire to aid in the absorption of the carbonating gas, and the claims of those patents conform to the teachings expressly set forth in the specifications. On the other hand, appellants have teachings in their specification which might justify claims based upon the use of materials having capillary, or absorptive, qualities for use in properly distributing the water for impregnation with the gas, but I do not find any appealed claim which meets the statutory requirement as to clarity and distinctiveness relative to a wicking feature. It is obvious, I think, that there is not a word or phrase in any one of the appealed claims which would so much as suggest the use of wick action in the carbonating art. As stated by the majority, appellants relied in the claims upon flexibility for novelty and found themselves faced with pertinent prior art.
I therefore concur in the conclusion.
JOHNSON, J., concurs in the above.