Court Opinion

ID: 9843067
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:25:39.379647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:27.214510
License: Public Domain

PLAGER, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
Readers interested in the work of this court may wish to understand the changes that resulted from the court having taken this case in banc, following the publication of the original panel opinion, which was vacated. See, A.C. Aukerman Co. v. R.L. Chaides Constr. Co., No. 90-1137, 18 USPQ2d 1618, 1991 WL 62407, 1991 U.S.App. LEXIS 7081 (Fed.Cir. Apr. 25, 1991). The decision today confirms the result and adopts the principles set forth in the original panel opinion. Estoppel and laches in patent law are returned to conformity with their traditional common law role and concept. In all of this there is full agreement.
The opinions of the court in banc and the panel differ in one significant respect, however — the question of what to do with the so-called six year presumption of laches. All agree that the presumption as it had developed (or at least as it had sometimes been applied) is no longer appropriate as a matter of law.
The original panel concluded that, in keeping with the rule earlier announced in banc in Cornetta1 and. consistent with the restoration of laches to its proper place, the presumption should simply be abolished — it no longer serves a useful purpose. A majority of the court is unwilling to go that far. The alternative arrived at by the court in banc is to identify a two-part presumption, based on the two elements of laches.
A delay of more than six years in filing suit is presumed to be unreasonable and inexcusable. That puts the burden of production on plaintiff to come forward with some explanation for the delay. The burden of persuasion that the delay was unreasonable and inexcusable remains with the defendant who raised the issue. The other part of the presumption is that the delay was the cause of material harm to defendant. Again plaintiff is charged to speak first, and the burden of persuasion remains with the defendant.
Both parts of the presumption are ‘bursting bubbles.’ Any evidence that raises a genuine issue of relevant fact causes that part of the presumption to totally disappear. Further, the court announces that the bursting of one bubble simultaneously bursts the other bubble. That is, the presentation of an issue of fact addressed to either part of the presumption — for example, delay — automatically bursts the other part — here, harm — as well.
There are several reasons why I find myself unable to join this part of the in banc court’s opinion. First, while the court notes that presumptions arise out of con*1047siderations of fairness, public policy, and probability (see the Majority Opinion at p. 1034), the court never explicitly addresses how these considerations compel a presumption of laches in patent cases. Absent a persuasive explanation of why as a matter of fairness and public policy it is necessary to have this presumption, it remains unclear to what problem the presumption is a solution.
Second, the court candidly acknowledges that the ‘borrowing’ of the six year period from section 286 of the Patent Act, as the measure of the term of the presumption, creates two separate six year periods which are functionally and practically unrelated. As the court put it, the two rules (the statute’s period for damages and the court’s period for the invocation of the presumption) “have in common only the same number of years.” (See the Majority Opinion at p. 1035). That other circuits formerly used the statute as the measure is at best a weak ground for continuing a rule that has so little acknowledged justification.2 It would seem preferable to leave to the trial court the flexibility to determine when there is sufficient basis for invoking a factual presumption, if one is needed.
Third, a presumption such as that involved here typically is designed to place upon a party with special knowledge of the facts the burden of coming forward with that knowledge. Here the second part of the presumption, the presumption of harm, does the opposite. The burden of eviden-tiary production is placed on the plaintiff, the party least likely to know the facts about how and in what ways the defendant was harmed by the delay. The court recognizes this anomaly, and responds to it by creating a ‘double bursting bubble.’ As noted above, the bubble is burst not only by a factual .showing that relates to one part of the presumption, but also by a factual showing that relates to the other, factually different, part of the presumption. This is a remarkable concept, perhaps unique in presumption law.
Maybe a case can be made that, after some time, a plaintiff’s delay in bringing suit would raise a factual inference or presumption of unreasonableness, allowing defendant to obtain judgment on that particular issue, absent rebuttal.3 But it is difficult to imagine the cáse for a presumption of harm, which allows a defendant to win if plaintiff cannot establish the contrary, when the relevant facts will invariably be in the hands of defendant. The ‘double bursting bubble,’ while creative, seems unnecessarily complicating.
Perhaps this is a mere quibble. No lawyer who reads carefully the court’s instructions in this case, and who has even a remotely respectable case, should have any difficulty in creating the factual showing that will cause both parts of the presumption to ‘burst.’ And there can be little doubt that the trial judges will understand when to brush the presumption aside and get to the merits of the case. I agree nevertheless with the old Shaker song that ‘Tis the gift to be simple,4 a notion that particularly applies to legal rules; to that extent I respectfully dissent.

. Cornetta v. United States, 851 F.2d 1372 (Fed.Cir.1988).

. "It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past.” Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Path of the Law, 10 Harv.L.Rev. 457, 469 (1897).

. The use of the verb "allow” is deliberate. The court makes clear that even when a defendant establishes both unreasonable and inexcusable delay and harm, the defendant is nevertheless not automatically entitled to judgment. There remains a discretionary determination by the trial judge, reviewable on appeal.

.'Tis the gift to be simple ’Tis the gift to be free 'Tis the gift to come down Where you ought to be ...
Aaron Copland made the melody of this song famous by his use of it in the ballet Appalachian Spring. The song itself was orchestrated by Copland and made part of a set of Old American Songs first performed by William Warfield.