Court Opinion

ID: 9443413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:19:28.289103+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:28.739482
License: Public Domain

JOHNSON, Judge
(dissenting).
It is true that, in the light of appellant’s disclosure, it would not be difficult to modify the prior art devices of record to produce a device such as that disclosed and claimed by appellant. This, however, does not necessarily negative the presence of patentable invention since the conception of a new and useful improvement must be considered along with the actual means of achieving it in order to determine the presence or absence of patentable invention. In re DeLancey, 159 F.2d 737, 34 C.C.P.A., Patents, 849. Although an ordinary person skilled in the art may construct the device claimed, claims may be allowed where there is no teaching in the urior art which would have led him to do1 so, providing, of course that the claimed device displays the exercise of invention. In re Riggs, 189 F.2d 285, 38 C.C.P.A., Patents, 1094. It seems to me that appellant by his simple changes has indeed produced what the majority refer to as an improvement — in my opinion, a marked improvement — and I fail to find in the prior art anything that suggests the simple changes appellant has made to achieve such improvement.
I am therefore of the opinion that the claimed' device is not only new and useful, but involves invention over the art of record. Accordingly, I think the decision of the Board of Appeals should be reversed.
O’CONNELL, J., concurs in this dissent.