Court Opinion

ID: 9453792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:24:01.663603+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:48.289909
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
In Graham v. John Deere Co., the Supreme Court stated that the “inquiry which the Patent Office and the courts must make as to patentability must be beamed with greater intensity on the [non-obviousness] requirements of § 103 * * 383 U.S. 1, 19, 86 S.Ct. 684, 694 (1966). I respectfully submit that *673the majority has ignored the Supreme Court’s admonition.
There is no question that the claimed compound is structurally obvious. The majority concludes that such a compound can meet the requirements of § 103 if it has novel properties. I need not decide whether this conclusion is correct because I believe there was no adequate showing that the claimed compound in fact possessed novel properties.
The only method of proving that a compound has properties not possessed by the prior art is comparative testing. Here the majority concedes that the comparative testing was not comprehensive. Furthermore, the trial judge’s ability to evaluate the limited comparative evidence was undoubtedly undermined by his belief that:
When the prior art does not contain the slightest suggestion that the properties of a claimed compound would make it useful for a certain advantageous purpose, then the utility itself is unobvious, and it is unnecessary for an applicant to prove by comparative tests that his compound is more useful for the certain purpose than closely related prior art compounds.
Finally, the district judge only concluded that the claimed compound was “equal or superior as a vermicide” to the prior art compounds. This is not a clear cut finding of novel properties.
The majority refuses to require further comparative testing in this ease because the appellee “went on to offer further evidence of a secondary nature — the indirect utility of the claimed compound as an intermediate for the production of known drugs with greater effectiveness than when prepared under then-existing methodology.” There is some question as to whether such secondary evidence is admissible.1 But even if it is, I do not believe it makes up for the lack of comprehensive testing on the primary issue— the claimed compound’s novel properties
when utilized as a vermicide. Thus I think the court’s opinion today fails to heed the admonition of the Supreme Court in Graham v. John Deere Co.

. See e. g., Application of Druey, 319 F.2d 237, 50 COPA 1538 (1963) ; Application of Finley, 174 F.2d 130, 36 COPA 998 (1949).