Court Opinion

ID: 9442611
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:52:58.679695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:09.155102
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Circuit Judge.
These are appeals by the plaintiff from judgments for the defendant, the Commissioner of Patents, in suits under R.S. § 4915, 35 U.S.C.A. § 63, to obtain patents on calculating machines composed of relays, switches, and other parts similar to those used in automatic telephone systems. The matter has been here twice before. International Standard Electric Corp. v. Ooms, 1946, 81 U.S.App.D.C. 215, 157 F.2d 73; International Standard Electric Corp. v. Kingsland, 1948, 83 U.S.App.D.C. 355, 169 F.2d 890.
R.S. § 4888, 35 U.S.C.A. § 33, requires an applicant for a patent to file in the Patent Office a description of his invention “and of the manner and process of making, constructing, coinpounding, and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which it appertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make, construct, compound, and use the same * * At first, the Patent Office and the District Court acted on the theory that the pertinent art was the calculating-machine art, and held appellant’s disclosures inadequate because they would not enable a person skilled in that art to make and use the inventions. On the first appeal we decided, in effect, that the pertinent art was the automatic-telephone art.
The District Court has now found that “None of the applications here involved contains a sufficient disclosure to enable an expert in the art of automatic telephony and telegraphy to make or use an operative device.” It evidently follows, and the court found in effect, that the ordinary skilled worker in the art could not make and use *593the device. This latter finding, at least, is plainly correct. In my opinion it is enough to support the judgment dismissing the complaint.
The statutory words “any person skilled in the art” have long been taken to mean what they say. As the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals puts it, “The generally accepted definition which has been applied as a working rule by the Patent Office as well as the courts over a long period of years * * * is to the effect that * * * ‘any person skilled in the art’ does not mean persons who excel their fellows in particular arts or sciences in which they are skilled, but merely men * who have ordinary or fair information and skill in that particular line. Ex parte Kerr, 1884 C.D. 27; Pupin v. Hutin, 1902 C.D. 269.” Application of Beach, 1946, 152 F.2d 981, 983, 33 C.C.Pa.Patents 815. As the Supreme Court has pointed out, one of the purposes of the patent law is to make sure “that the subject of the patent will be dedicated ultimately to the public.” General Electric Co. v. Wabash Appliance Corp., 304 U.S. 364, 369, 58 S.Ct. 899, 902, 82 L.Ed. 1402. In return for the monopoly that the government grants to the inventor for a teim of years, he is to disclose enough about his device to bring it within reach of the public when his patent expires. A disclosure that would enable a man of exceptional training and experience in the art, but not a person of ordinary skill in it, to make the device might not serve this important public purpose. Persons wishing to produce the device when the patent expires might not be able to find such a man; in fact, there might be no such man. The statute therefore requires the applicant for a patent to describe his invention, and how to make and use it, so that “any person skilled in the art” can make and use it.
The cases of A. B. Dick Co. v. Barnett, 2 Cir., 288 F. 799, and American Stainless Steel Co. v. Ludlum Steel Co., 2 Cir., 290 F. 103, decided in 1923, are not to the contrary. In the Dick case the court said in 288 F. at page 801, “we are satisfied that there was not the least difficulty on the part of one with an elementary knowledge of chemistry and a fair practical workman, in making Fuller’s stencil sheet after reading Fuller’s patent.” In the Stainless Steel case the court said in 290 F. at pages 107, 108, the “disclosure speaks directly to those whose business it is to make the steel, and not to the cutler who is to fashion it” and should not, therefore, be tested “by the light of a cutler’s (rather underestimated) workaday knowledge.”
It is not clear that appellant’s disclosures would enable even a man of exceptional training and experience in the art to make the device. Appellant’s witness Williams, an engineer of over 40 years experience in the telephone field, expressed the opinion that not only he but the average automatic-telephone engineer could build the device from the disclosures. But, as we held on the first appeal, “the court was under no obligation to accept * * * untested opinion as conclusive.” International Standard Electric Co. v. Ooms, 81 U.S.App.D.C. at page 216, 157 F.2d at page 74. Even wholly uncontradicted Testimony on matters of fact, as distinguished from opinion, is not always conclusive.1 And Evans, an examiner in the Patent Office with 12 years experience in automatic telephony, testified that he could not build the device. It was for the judge who saw the witnesses and heard thc testimony to determine its weight. More over, appellant’s witness contradicted himself. In response to the question “Could you build it?”2 he answered, “I think Yes, sir”; similarly, in response to the question “Why didn’t you build one?” he said, “Your Honor, I didn’t have time.” To the contrary, he testified a few minutes later: “I wouldn’t say 1 would be able to actually construct a machine.”3
*594Judge BAZELON agrees that, for the reasons stated in the preceding paragraph, we cannot say the court was clearly wrong in finding that the applicant’s disclosures would not enable an expert in the art of automatic telephony to make or use an operative device. The judgment of the District Court is therefore affirmed. Judge BAZELON disagrees with' me and agrees with Judge MILLER as to the meaning of “any person skilled in the art.”
Affirmed.

. E. g., Quock Ting v. United States, 140 U.S. 417, 420, 11 S.Ct. 733, 35 L.Ed. 501.

. I. e., “construct the inventions of the [appellant’s,] applications from the information contained in the descriptions and drawings of those applications.”

. He also contradicted himself in regard to the operativeness of the machine. n« testified: “I was able to understand what the invention was and satisfy myself, and *594I did, that the structure was operative,”' but he afterwards testified: “It may be assumed that such an application, the circuits are operative, or they wouldn’t • have been presented to the Patent Office, —I wouldn’t make a study for operative —for detailed operativeness. I would go ahead and start and proceed to manufacture. * * * I am assuming that the device is operative as shown. To make a. study to determine its operativeness would'require perhaps several days.”