Court Opinion

ID: 9450113
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:35:38.136107+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:09.334754
License: Public Domain

WORLEY, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
The Patent Office has given Manson an opportunity to show that his product is useful. Although that is his obligation he has been either unable or unwilling to do so. Therefore, the Patent Office quite properly rejected his application and should be affirmed.
I am aware of no authority for the novel proposition that a process which produces a useless product is patentable. Such a premise is wholly contrary to the Constitution and I am satisfied Congress did not intend the statutes enacted thereunder to be so construed.
In In re Oberweger, 115 F.2d 826, 28 CCPA 749, this court quoted with approval an earlier statement from In re Perrigo, 48 F.2d 965,18 CCPA 1323:
“Neither the Patent Office tribunals nor the court may properly grant patents upon a mere possibility that a device might do the things claimed for it and be useful. There must be definiteness. Neither the Constitution nor the statutes contemplate the granting of patents upon theories, nor giving a monopoly upon intellectual speculations embodied in devices incapable of scientific analysis.”
In Libbey-Owens-Ford Glass Co. v. Celanese, 135 F.2d 138, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held:
“Controlling is the fact that such method claims are limited to the use of plastic compositions, with the identical ingredients and in the proportions of the three product claims, which have been already held to be insufficiently disclosed and inoperative, and the process, therefore, lacks the further requisite of utility.”
j appreciate the fact that Manson’s product is a known compound which may — or may not — someday prove to be useful. However, for his process to possess the requisite statutory utility, it must presently be more than a mere invitation to others to determine that it is useful.