Court Opinion

ID: 9447858
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:45:57.578012+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:12.855087
License: Public Domain

WORLEY, Chief Judge,
with whom KIRKPATRICK, Judge, joins, dissenting.
I agree with the board that the affidavit submitted by appellant is insufficient to show completion of the invention recited in the appealed claims prior to the effective date of the German patent.
The affidavit relates to tests of a washing solution containing 0.12% of Nacconal NRSF, 0.08% of sodium tripolyphosphate, 0.04% of sodium carbonate, and 0.1% carbon black, to which polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) was added in amounts varying from 0.001% to 0.1%. The tests involved the washing of cloth samples and showed a progressive increase in washing efficiency from 0.001 to 0.05% of PVP and a slightly lower efficiency at 0.1 than at 0.05 per cent of that material. No other materials were tested and the affidavit does not mention soil suspension.
I am unable to see how those limited tests establish completion of the invention of the appealed claims, which call for the use of PVP with any organic surface-active detergent to minimize redeposition of removed soil. There is nothing whatever in the affidavit to show that appellants contemplated the use of PVP in combination with any detergent other than that actually used in the tests, or that they even recognized that PVP was acting as a soil suspension agent rather than as a detergent. So far as the affidavit shows it may have been thought that the improved results were due to some special coaction of PVP with the particular detergent used.
Appellants’ application was not in existence when the tests described in the affidavit were made, and the disclosures contained in the application cannot be retroactively read into the tests. If, as seems to be suggested by the majority, appellants, when the tests were made, had the broad idea that PVP would be effective as a soil suspension agent in conjunction with any organic surface-active detergent, it would have been a simple matter for them to have said so in their affidavit. They failed to do so, and the affidavit is silent as to the actual purpose of the tests and as to the conclusions, if any, which were drawn from them. Under such circumstances, I do not think we may properly fill in the gap by speculation favorable to appellants. The affidavit should be taken at its face value and, when so considered, it clearly fails to suggest the invention recited in the appealed claims.
It is to be noted that the German patent disclosing the invention claimed by appellant was published and available to the public six months before appellants’ *938application was filed. Under such, circumstances it seems evident that a very convincing showing by appellant should be necessary to justify granting a patent. Appellants’ affidavit simply does not make such a showing.
The issue here is not whether the claimed invention might have been obvious to one skilled in the art on the basis of the experiments described in the affidavit. To antedate the reference it is necessary to show actual completion of the claimed invention, and not merely a concept which might have enabled one skilled in the art to complete it.
I would affirm the decision appealed from.