Court Opinion

ID: 9451347
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:14:34.687106+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:40.615406
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The majority opinion identifies the fundamental question in this appeal as “whether the patent owner has * *, made viable charges of infringement.” The majority then states that its consideration of the complaint reveals no allegation that FMC has charged Walker, “or any of Walker’s customers, at any time since the Greensboro litigation, with any kind of infringement.” I cannot agree.
The majority says that the several allegations of Walker’s complaint relating to FMC’s “licensing program” and to the Greensboro lawsuit do not embrace “vi*453able charges” of infringement. I concede that this may be arguable; however, paragraph sixteen of the amended complaint states in part:
Since the opinion of the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in FMC Corporation v. City of Greensboro * * *, the defendant has continued to charge that use of plaintiff’s “Gaslifter” digester stirring equipment infringes said Letters Patent No. 2,777,815.
I think that this is an allegation by Walker that FMC has charged it with contributory infringement. The complaint need not allege that the charge of infringement was addressed directly to Walker, nor need it allege that Walker’s customers were told that Walker had committed acts of infringement. It is sufficient for Walker to allege that its customers were told that if they use Walker’s equipment, they (the customers) will be guilty of infringement. In such circumstances, Walker, albeit indirectly, has been charged with contributory infringement and thus has a sufficient interest to seek relief under the Declaratory Judgment Act.
A very similar allegation was considered by this court in National Coupling Co. v. Press-Seal Gasket Corp., 323 F.2d 629 (7th Cir. 1963). There National Coupling sought a declaratory judgment of noninfringement and invalidity against the owner of a patent for a gasket and pipe end construction for bell and spigot pipe. National Coupling’s complaint alleged that the paten-tee had charged one of National Coupling’s customers that if the customer used gaskets manufactured by National Coupling in the production of certain pipe, the customer would be guilty of infringement. We held there that such a charge by the patentee against a customer of National Coupling was also a charge of contributory infringement against National Coupling. “The import of * * * [the patentee’s statements] is that but for the use of National Coupling’s gasket there would be no infringement. Thus, the charge of infringement is against National Coupling.”
Although not a declaratory judgment action, another case that bears on the question here is Electro Bleaching Gas Co. v. Paradon Eng’r Co., 12 F.2d 511 (2d Cir.) cert. denied, 273 U.S. 728, 47 S.Ct. 239, 71 L.Ed. 862 (1926). There the owner of a process patent for the purification of water sued a manufacturer of a mechanical device that might be used and was ordinarily used for the purification of water in accordance with the patented process. The court held that the sale of this device for use in the process was a species of contributory infringement and upheld the patent owner’s right of recovery.
Here Walker alleges that FMC is informing Walker’s customers that if they use Walker’s digester stirrers they, Walker’s customers, will infringe FMC’s process patent. Walker’s complaint thus alleges a charge of infringement by FMC. The question of whether Walker’s equipment could or could not in fact infringe FMC’s process patent is irrelevant to the question of whether a charge of infringement has been made.
Since Walker alleges that it has been charged with infringement by FMC, Aralac, Inc. v. Hat Corp. of America, 166 F.2d 286 (3rd Cir. 1948), is not applicable. In Aralac, the court stated that “there has never been a charge of infringement made by defendant against plaintiff or any of plaintiff’s customers or prospective customers by notice, threat or suit as to the sale or purchase of casein fiber or against casein fiber as such, but a claim that the purchasers of plaintiff’s fibers were, by using the process encompassed by defendant’s patents, performing an act of infringement.” There the casein fiber manufactured by the plaintiff was only one of several ingredients which, when combined under the patented process, formed a new commodity. This is made clear by the following statement at page 293 in the opinion:
Plaintiff has the right to have that which it lawfully produces freely *454bought and sold without restraint or interference. It is a right which attaches to its product, to a particular thing — as an article of commerce — ■ and it continues only so long as the commodity to which the right applies retains its separate identity. If in the course of trade that commodity is combined with other things in the process of the manufacture of a new commodity, the trade right in the original part as an article of commerce is necessarily gone. So that if other persons become manufacturers on their own behalf, assembling the various elements and uniting them so as to produce hats or hat bodies, a new article, it is manifest plaintiff cannot by reason of its mere right to make and sell, and the fact of its having made and sold casein fibers to the manufacturers of the new article, satisfy the legal requirement that it has sufficient legal interest in any claim arising under the patent laws, enabling it by declaratory judgment to challenge the validity of the defendant’s patent, where no charge of infringement has been made against the product sold by plaintiff but against a process with which plaintiff has had no connection.
In the instant case it is not claimed that the Walker equipment is a commodity (such as casein fibers or, for example, steel) that is “combined with other things in the process of the manufacture of a new commodity.” Rather, according to the complaint, FMC has charged and is currently .charging that the use of Walker’s equipment infringes the patent. Stated differently, the charge is that the Walker equipment is the means for applying the patented process. For the foregoing reasons I cannot agree with the court’s observation that Walker’s complaint alleges no outstanding charges by FMC of infringement by Walker, and its holding that Walker does not have a sufficient legal interest to maintain this suit. I would reverse the dismissal order.