Court Opinion

ID: 9453863
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:26:37.337123+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:50.489118
License: Public Domain

SMITH, Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully record my dissent from the conclusion of the majority.
Initially, it appears from this record that the examiner, in his final rejection, stated that the claims which are now here on appeal were rejected “as the obvious method of making the article defined by claims 5 and 7 — 11.” Those claims, it will be observed, are directed *252to the article and are now all allowed. In a subsequent letter, the examiner referred to the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure, 706.03(q),1 and a Commissioner’s Notice, entitled “Guidelines of Patentability,” 792 O.G. 293 GPI(e),2 urging that the “alleged novel starting material is obvious from an inspection of the claimed article.” Appellant’s brief to the board challenged the statutory foundation for such a rejection in the patent statutes. Only in a Supplemental Examiner’s Answer, in response to appellant’s Reply Brief, was the Henderson patent relied upon as prior art in discussing the appealed claims. The board stated the rejection as “apparently” arising under 35 U.S.C. § 103, relying upon the Henderson patent as exemplifying “the obvious practice of the well known siliconizing procedure.”
Thus, to the extent that the reasoning of the Patent Office is postulated upon the premise that once appellant had conceived his article, the method of making it would be obvious, that rejection is in error. 35 U.S.C. § 103 requires us to consider the differences between subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art as of the time the invention was made. Those statutory strictures must be carefully and accurately applied.
Second, on this record, I am unable to determine from the present record, with the certainty of the majority, that the invention resides in the article. Rather, it seems to me to be doubtful whether the invention resides in the article alone or in the process. In that instance, and where the invention may be claimed with equal facility in terms either of the method or structure, both types of claims should be allowed to issue on the basis that they are but alternative, statutorily-recognized expressions for defining the invention. In re Conover, 304 F.2d 680, 49 CCPA 1205 (1962). See In re Bowman, 347 F.2d 905, 52 CCPA 1521 (1965).
Finally, even if I were of the majority view that the invention resides in the article, I would dissent for the reasons more fully stated in my dissenting opinions in In re Larsen, 292 F.2d 531, 536, 49 CCPA 711, 718 (1961), and In re Al-bertson, 332 F.2d 379, 382, 51 CCPA 1377, 1381 (1964). While I agree that the statement of the case of In re Neu-gebauer, 330 F.2d 353, 51 CCPA 1138 (1964), proffered by the majority is accurate, I do not think that it is controlling on the record here.
It seems to me that In re Naylor, 369 F.2d 765, 54 CCPA 902, (1966), is more appropriate to the situation before us. There, we stated, id. at-, 369 F.2d at 767-768:
However, appellant is not claiming simply a process for preparing polybu-tadiene. Rather it is a process for preparing a particular polybutadiene having a particular microstructure *253and particular properties. Concededly, the reference combination does not teach that the Crawford process, as modified by the disclosure of Badis-che-Anilin, would produce the product sought by appellant and recited in his claims. We cannot ignore the particular product unexpectedly produced by the claimed process, as the Patent Office apparently has done, in determining whether the claimed subject matter as a whole is obvious. * * *
Here, a particular product is unexpectedly produced in that the prior silicon-containing cases tended to spall, whereas appellant’s products overcome this difficulty.
For these reasons, I would reverse.

. Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP), 706.03 (q).
An Applicant may invent a new and useful article of manufacture. Once the article is conceived, it often happens that anyone skilled in the art would at once be aware of a method of making it. In such a case, if applicant asserts both article and method claims, the articles claims are allowed but the method claims may be rejected as being drawn to an obvious method of making the article.

. While I remain of the view that the 1952 Patent Act sets forth the controlling statement of “guidelines for patent-ability,” that section of the Commissioner’s Notice, Guidelines of Patentability, 792 O.G. 293 GPI(e), provides:
It is well settled that a process which amounts of nothing more than an obvious manner of producing an article or product is not patentable.
While a rejection on this ground does not require the citation of art or the allowance of any claim, it must be apparent to a person ordinarily skilled in the art, without reference to any method disclosure contained in the application, how the article was made. In other words, the rejection is proper if such a person would be able, upon the basis of his own knowledge, to produce the article merely by having it shown to him or by being told what ingredients it contained. Note In re Larsen, [292 F.2d 531], 49 CCPA 711.