Court Opinion

ID: 9448460
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:36:40.872256+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:26.587268
License: Public Domain

DANAHER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I think this applicant was entitled to a patent on his method of storm-proofing a primary conductor. After my study of the record, I was impelled to conclude not only that appellant’s system is new and useful and not obvious, but it fills a need never well met by others, and does so at less cost than any method previously devised or presently in use. To clarify the picture, we all know that electric power is transmitted cross-country at very high voltages, often in excess of 100,000 volts. At a substation, that high voltage must be transformed for transmission through city streets and towns on a primary distribution circuit, preferably it is shown, by such a system as Hendrix has invented. The high voltage is stepped down to some 2,400 to 13,800 volts which the Hendrix method makes it possible to distribute, economically, safely and largely uninterruptedly. The power is thus transmitted to smaller transformers, again to be stepped down to 110 or 220 volts to be passed over secondary distribution lines for domestic or local industrial use.
In our national economy in which electric power has become vitally essential, it is of the utmost importance that an aerial primary distribution circuit be available which will effectively resist storm damage, reduce if not eliminate interruptions in service to industry, to hospitals and homes, and do so at reasonable cost. Hendrix met the problem. No one involved in the prior art had done so.
“Knowledge after the event is always easy, and problems once solved present no difficulties, indeed, may be represented as never having had any, and expert witnesses may be brought forward to show that the new thing which seemed to have eluded the search of the world was always ready at hand and easy to be seen by a merely skillful attention.” 1
*530I think Hendrix has added a new and valuable article to the world’s utilities, and he is “entitled to the rank and protection of an inventor.” 8
The principal reference relied upon and cited against Hendrix is the Vail patent No. 279,289, issued June 12, 1883. Vail was dealing with telephone wires not even remotely similar to those necessary in a primary distribution conductor. His bare wires transmitting power from a couple of dry cell batteries are utterly useless for the transmission and distribution of electric power under the high voltage which Hendrix permits. How Vail can be regarded as prior art eludes me. The Commissioner argues on brief:
“It is apparent, then, that the only recitations in the claims not met by the Vail structure are the references to the construction as being adapted to carry at least 2000 volts, the insulative sheath on the conductors, and the mechanical details of the hanger-spacer clamp. It is respectfully submitted that the Board of Appeals and the District Court were correct in finding * * * these features to be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art.” (Emphasis added.)
It is precisely in the three “only recitations” that invention is found in Hendrix. When it is argued that an engineer of ordinary skill in the art of distributing electrical energy would read Vail as suggesting Hendrix, the short answer is that no one did.
In my view Hendrix should have prevailed in the Patent Office. My observation does not run with equal force against the conclusion of the District Court. The District Judge obviously felt bound by and he relied upon Abbott v. Coe,2
3 as his opinion shows. We had made him its prisoner by the status we had accorded to a mere presumption. We have mathematically squared the adverse force and effect of that presumption in Esso Standard Oil Co. v. Sun Oil Co.,4 relied upon by the majority here.
The economy of the United States rests importantly, one might say essentially, upon our patent system which traces its origins to the Constitution itself.5
6Rec-ognizing its importance, and in its aid, Congress in 35 U.S.C. § 102 has provided that a “person shall be entitled to a patent” unless its issuance is to be precluded under circumstances carefully spelled out. In my view, none of them has application here. Even the eonvoluting constrictions of the “presumptions” drop out of the case, as I assay the evidence in this record. I would adjudge that this applicant “is entitled to receive a patent for his invention, as specified in any of his claims involved in the decision of the Board of Appeals,'8 as the facts in the case may appear * * 7
*531As a matter of subjective opinion based on the facts of record, and according to the appellant that “wider latitude” 8 we are entitled to exercise, I think Hendrix here met the standard of invention. He is entitled to the reward he deserves.9

. Diamond Rubber Co. v. Consolidated Tire Co., 290 U.S. 428, 435, 31 S.Ct. 444, 55 L.Ed., 527 (1911).

. Ibid.; and see L-O-F Glass Fibers Company v. Watson, 97 U.S.App.D.C. 69, 72, 228 F.2d 40, 43 (1955).

. 71 App.D.C. 195, 109 F.2d 449 (1939).

. 97 U.S.App.D.C. 154, 229 F.2d 37, cert. denied 351 U.S. 973, 76 S.Ct. 1027, 100 L.Ed. 1491 (1956).

. U.S.Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 8.

. Hendrix Claim 25 quoted as representative by the Board of Patent Appeals reads:
“In a self-supporting aerial electric power distribution cable of the class adapted to carry at least 2000 volts, in combination, a supportive messenger strand, means for anchoring it at span-defining elevated supports, a plurality of conductors associated in a single circuit and having each an insulative sheath of thickness greatly reduced from that standard with and necessary to cables of like capacity and whose conductors are ordered in contact with each other, and a plurality of light weight rigid non-conductive hanger-spacer elements positioned along the messenger between said anchoring means, said elements including members releasably clamped around and mounting resilient sleeves in individual encompassing engagement with the messenger and conductors and thereby insulatively maintaining them in separately spaced ordered relation.”

. 35 U.S.C. § 145 (1958).

. Standard Oil Development Co. v. Marzall, 80 U.S.App.D.C. 210, 214, 181 F.2d 280, 284 (1950).

. L-O-F Glass Fibers Company v. Watson, supra note 2, 97 U.S.App.D.C. at 70, 228 F.2d at 47.