Court Opinion

ID: 9443577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:25:08.721479+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:32.489807
License: Public Domain

STRUM, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Being of the opinion that the patents in question are valid and infringed, and that there has been no sufficient prior anticipation of the device here in question to defeat its patentability, I think the decree appealed from should be affirmed.
The Switzer patent relates to a novel col- or phenomenon termed daylight fluorescence. It embodies a device which imparts to clothing, paper or other material a fluorescent quality which in daylight causes the material to emit light, rather than merely reflecting it. This creates a sharper and more vivid color, distinguishable at much greater distances, and with much greater fidelity to color, than is true with an ordinary color which does no more than reflect light.
Ordinary non-fluorescent colors which operate by the mere reflection of light rays absorb many of the useful properties of light found in the invisible ultra-violet rays, *826as well as in the visible blue, green, yellow and orange wave lengths of light, which are also present in the incident light. These are called “subtractive” colors because they diminish the useful properties of light. In these non-fluorescent or “subtractive” colors the absorbed light rays are wasted.
By the Switzer patent, however, these ordinarily wasted light rays are utilized. This is accomplished by the use of a “backing -sheet” impregnated with fluorescent dye highly responsive-to daylight, imparting to the . material to which it is applied a fluorescent brilliance rendering it more vivid' and distinguishable at much greater distances, than the ordinary reflected color. Instead of absorbing light, the materials so treated emit colors which are not only very brilliant, but which are pure and sharply discernible, even in “thick” weather or in semi-darkness. Clothing, signaling devices and other articles made from materials so treated are used by the Army, Navy and Air Force for signaling and identification in situations where visibility and distinguishability at great distances are vital. Materials which contain the properties imparted by this device are sharply distinguishable at distances much greater, and maintain their color with greater fidelity, than ordinary material.which depends upon the natural reflection of light to establish its -color. It seems to me that a new device which produces these results constitutes a patentable discovery which should be protected. The same general observation applies to the Gantner patent which utilizes the same basic principles in materials for making bathing suits, thereby producing a product of brilliant hue, distinguishable at great distance and under difficult lighting conditions.
It is true that there is some evidence of an attempted anticipation of these devices. But the prior art was not sufficiently developed to constitute a -prior disclosure. The method here employed, and the results produced, differ substantially from those of the alleged prior art, which produced a dull color of limited visibility, whereas the • colors produced by the Switzer method are sharp, vivid and highly distinguishable, even in semi-darkness. ' This was no't true of the product of the alleged prior art. The Switzer product is much more brilliant, and distinguishable at much greater distances than the prior product. This is due to the marked superiority of the Switzer device for producing fluorescent qualities in the material. A device is patentable even though it rests upon a combination of elements already known. But in my opinion it can not be said that the method here employed constitutes a mere combination of prior disclosures, as in Ritchie v. Lewis-Browning Mfg. Co., 5 Cir., 196 F.2d 434, and 'Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co. v. Supermarket, 340 U.S. 147, 71 S.Ct. 127, 95 L.Ed. 162. It is a new “discovery” within the meaning of the patent laws. See Switzer v. Marzall, D.C., 94 F.Supp. 52, affirmed, D.C.Cir., 199 F.2d 776, in which a similar process is held patentable, also Switzer Bros. v. Centennial Liquor Stores, 5 Cir., 186 F.2d 414, where validity of the Switzer- patent here involved (No. 2,417,-384) was conceded, and this Court ordered a recovery of damages for its infringement. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.
Rehearing denied: STRUM, Circuit Judge, dissenting.