Court Opinion

ID: 9449434
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:12:08.645698+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:50.098221
License: Public Domain

WORLEY, Chief Judge,
with whom MARTIN, J., joins (dissenting).
The controlling issue here is whether Petrocarbon Ltd. v. Watson1 is res judicata of the instant appeal. Clearly it is. In Petroearbon the U. S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that appellant’s parent application, upon which he must rely to prevail here, was *288fatally defective as a matter of law.2 We nre urged to hold, in effect, that the same Application is not fatally defective.
I am aware of no authority, statutory ■or judicial, which would allow this court to nullify the decision of a sister court •of competent jurisdiction. I fail to see any relevance of Blair v. Commissioner3 v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue v. Sunnen 4 to the facts here, nor am I able to see how Wilke & Pfohl,5 decided in 1963, can possibly provide any support for .setting aside Petrocarbon, decided in 1957, and which remains unmodified.
To me this is a clear case of res judicata. In United States v. Munsingwear,6 the Supreme Court cited as the classic statement of the rule of res judicata, the following from Southern Pacific R. Co. v. United States, 168 U.S. 1, 48-49, 18 S.Ct. 18, 27, 42 L.Ed. 355:
“The general principle announced in numerous cases is that a right, question or fact distinctly put in issue and directly determined by a court of competent jurisdiction, as a ground of recovery, cannot be disputed in a subsequent suit between the same parties or their privies; and even if the second suit is for a different cause of action, the right, question or fact once so determined must, as between the same parties or their privies, be taken as conclusively established, so long as the judgment in the first suit remains unmodified.”
That decision is subsequent to Sunnen, upon which the majority relies so heavily, and far more applicable to the instant controversy.
Closely paralleling this case is Hemphill Co. v. Coe.7 There the Court of Appeals was asked to hold operative an alleged invention which this court had previously held inoperative. In refusing to do so the Court of Appeals stated: “Appellant seeks really to redetermine the question which the decision of the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals has concluded.” We have the reverse situation here — appellant would have us “redetermine” the same question which the Court of Appeals has “concluded.”
Clearly Szwarc and Petrocarbon are privy and the invention and the issue, i. e., the sufficiency of the Petrocarbon application in law are the same.8 Initially appellant elected to go to the District Court, which was his privilege, rather than seek review in this court. He has had his day in court, including two unsuccessful attempts to obtain review by the Supreme Court.9 He now seeks a second day in court, urging us to set what would be an intolerable precedent of legal chaos and uncertainty by reviewing, indeed by reversing, a question which has already been decided by a court of competent jurisdiction. That we cannot do.
I would affirm P.A. 6462 as to all claims, and would dismiss P.A. 7000 as not involving an appealable question.

. 101 App.D.C. 214, 247 F.2d 800, cert. denied 355 U.S. 955, 78 S.Ct. 540, 2 L.Ed.2d 531, petition for rehearing denied 356 U.S. 978, 78 S.Ct. 1134, 2 L.Ed.2d 1146.

. The Szwarc application was held not to include an adequate description of the manner of using the invention as required by 35 U.S.C. § 112.

. 300 U.S. 5, 57 S.Ct. 330, 81 L.Ed. 465.

. 333 U.S. 591, 68 S.Ct. 715, 92 L.Ed. 898.

. 314 F.2d 558, 50 CCPA 964.

. 340 U.S. 36, 71 S.Ct. 104, 95 L.Ed. 36.

. 74 App.D.C. 123, 121 F.2d 897.

. Although the appealed claims here are different in number and language from those in Petrocarbon, they obviously define the same product and process and could be allowed only if we held, contrary to Petrocarbon, that the parent application includes a description of the product and process that is adequate under 35 U.S.C. § 112.

. Supra, note 1.