Court Opinion

ID: 9449109
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:57:03.095241+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:42.293283
License: Public Domain

SMITH, Judge
(dissenting).
In my opinion, the Petition for Rehearing should be granted and further consideration given to what seems to me to be a misapplication by the majority of General Electric Co. v. Wabash Appliance Corp., et al., 304 U.S. 364, 58 S.Ct. 899, 82 L.Ed. 1402.
The majority opinion arrives at the conclusion that the appealed claims are objectionably “functional” by what the Petition for Rehearing characterizes as “some rather elaborate reasoning”. The reasoning of the majority requires as its starting point the acceptance of a limited construction of the word “potency” as meaning solely the “ability to effect a certain result”. This construction was derived by the majority from a portion of the definition of “potency” in Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2nd Ed., 1949. The entire definition leads me to the conclusion that there is a basic fallacy in the majority opinion which arises from attributing too narrow a meaning to this term. This fallacy then leads to the conclusion, with which I do not agree, that the word “potency” in the appealed claims defines “what the concentrate will do rather than what it is”. [Emphasis added.]
The word “potency” is used in the appealed claims as one of the accepted parameters which tells a person skilled in this art what the claimed adrenocorticotrophin hormone concentrate is in terms of its strength stated as “potency”.
I believe this position is supported by the complete definitions of the term in Webster’s New International Dictionary, 2nd Ed., 1949, which defines “potency” as:
1. Quality or state of being potent;
* * •»
b. general efficiency or capability; power or energy more or less free to act or not; * * *
c. specific efficacy or capacity;
•X- « X-
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary, 1961, gives another definition for “potency” as:
* * * c (1): chemical or medical strength or efficacy <the > of the drink> <the of the drug> <the material has lost its by being exposed to light * * *>
A technical definition of “potency” which those of ordinary skill in this art would apply to it is found in Hack’s Chemical Dictionary, 3rd Ed., 1944, where its meaning in therapeutics is given as “The strength or power or activity of a drug.”
The word “potency” thus has shades and varieties of meanings which the majority does not appear to have considered. When used in its technical sense as it is in the appealed claims, it should be given a meaning which is consistent with that found in the specification. In the specification we find the word “potency” is used throughout in what seems to me to be the therapeutic meaning ascribed to it by Hack’s, i. e., “The strength or power or activity of a drug.” Thus po*822tency of the claimed hormone concentrate is related in the specification to what is a “generally accepted standard” of The Technical Advisory Committee to the Study Section for Metabolism and Endocrinology of the National Institutes of Health. Throughout the specification, the term “potency” is used in its therapeutic sense in relation to the standard units recognized by the committee as in the statements that “The purified fraction obtained has a potency of 97% of standard * * * ”; or “The final product has a potency which is 220% of standard * * Similar uses of the term are found in all the examples with the specific “potency” characteristics given as a term of measurement of the strength or activity of the drug in terms of a stated precentage of a defined and well recognized standard.
Thus, it seems to me that the reference to “potency”, in the appealed claims is the same as specifying the concentration or strength of an acid or base in terms of its pH value, etc. It is, like most chemical and pharmacological properties of substances, expressed in terms of reference to an accepted standard. As such, it tells something about what the claimed product is.
As shown in the specification, the term “potency” is a parameter recognized in the pharmaceutical art as one of the characteristics of the product which particularly points out and distinctly claims what it is. In my prior dissent I discussed the term “posterior pituitary contamination” as measured by particularly stated units of vasopressin and oxytocin activity. Such terms are the antithesis of the vague, indefinite and functional terms so frequently criticized by the courts. When used as terms of description, in the specification, such terms are legally sufficient to meet the requirements of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112; when used in the claims, such terms particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention and are legally sufficient to meet the requirements- of the second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112.