Court Opinion

ID: 9494902
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:49:36.986028+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:41.513655
License: Public Domain

DYK, Circuit Judge,
with whom LINN, Circuit Judge,
joins, concurring.
I join the majority opinion, and write separately only to emphasize further why our decision today is entirely consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision in Graver Tank & Manufacturing Co., Inc. v. Linde Air Products Co., 339 U.S. 605, 70 S.Ct. 854, 94 L.Ed. 1097 (1950) (“Graver Tank II”).
*1060In the first Graver Tank decision, Graver Tank & Manufacturing Co., Inc. v. Linde Air Products Co., 336 U.S. 271, 276-77, 69 S.Ct. 535, 93 L.Ed. 672 (1949), the Court approved the district court’s decision that composition claims 24 and 26 of U.S. Patent No. 2,043,960 (“the '960 patent”) relating to electric welding were invalid on the ground that they were too broad and comprehended more than the invention. The Court also approved the district court’s decision that composition claims 18, 20, 22, and 23 were valid and infringed. Id. at 275.
The Court then granted rehearing to reconsider whether the four valid claims 18, 20, 22, and 23 were infringed and whether the doctrine of equivalents applied. Graver Tank II, 339 U.S. at 606, 70 S.Ct. 854. On rehearing, the Court in an opinion by Justice Jackson held that the doctrine of equivalents did in fact apply, and that claims 18, 20, 22, and 23 were infringed under the doctrine of equivalents:
It is difficult to conceive of a case more appropriate for application of the doctrine of equivalents. The disclosures of the prior art made clear that manganese silicate was a useful ingredient in welding compositions. Specialists familiar with the problems of welding compositions understood that manganese was equivalent to and could be substituted for magnesium in the composition of the patented flux and their observations were confirmed by the literature of chemistry.
Id. at 612, 70 S.Ct. 854 (emphasis added).
Justice Douglas dissented on the ground that the equivalent subject matter had been dedicated to the public: “[The manganese silicate flux] was disclosed in the application and then excluded from the claims. It therefore became public property.” Id. at 618, 70 S.Ct. 854 (Douglas, J., dissenting). See also id. at 617, 70 S.Ct. 854 (Black, J., dissenting).
Despite Justice Jackson’s usual elegance and precision of expression, the majority opinion does not respond to either dissent or explain why there had been no dedication to the public as a result of the disclosures in the specification. As a result, we must look to the facts of the case to determine the scope of the Court’s holding in Ch'aver Tank II.
The court here explains the consistency of its rule with Graver Tank II on the ground that “the patentee had claimed the ‘equivalent’ subject matter, even if the Court eventually held the relevant claims too broad.” Ante at 1053. In other words, I understand the majority to say that the dedication rule is a species of conscious waiver. The patentee has control over the drafting of the claims, and if he discloses but omits to claim certain subject matter, he will be held to have waived the right to capture the disclosed matter under the doctrine of equivalents, and to have dedicated it to the public. No such waiver occurs where, as in Graver Tank II, the patentee actually claimed the subject matter, even if the particular claims are later held invalid. There is, moreover, in such circumstances far less possibility that the patentee is “gaming” the system, that is, deliberately writing narrow claims with the objective of avoiding a searching PTO examination and recapturing the disclosed subject matter through the doctrine of equivalents. Thus, the majority concludes, and I agree, that Graver Tank II is distinguishable on its facts because the equivalent subject matter in that case (if disclosed) was also claimed.
In addition, I find another significant factual distinction between this case and Graver Tank II. In finding its decision consistent with Graver Tank II, the major*1061ity here assumes that the Graver Tank II patent did in fact disclose the equivalent subject matter later sought to be covered by the doctrine of equivalents. But a careful examination of the record shows that it did not do so with any clarity. While the district court explicitly found that the Graver Tank II patent disclosed the subject matter sought to be covered by the doctrine of equivalents,1 this was a matter of some controversy. The invalidated claims of the '960 patent (24 and 26) were general and made no specific reference to the use of manganese. The specification made reference to the possible use of manganese, but it was not clear that the specification actually disclosed that manganese silicate (or the particular combination reflected in the infringing material) worked for its intended purpose.2 Thus, this case is factually different from Graver Tank II, in that the clear disclosures present here and in Maxwell v. J. Baker, Inc., 86 F.3d 1098, 1108, 89 USPQ2d 1001, 1007 (Fed.Cir.1996) did not exist in Graver Tank II. On this ground our decision here is also consistent with Graver Tank II.
Finally, quite apart from the factual distinctions of Graver Tank II, it seems highly likely that the Supreme Court did not even consider the question of dedication by disclosure in the specification to be properly-before it.
The district court specifically held that the manganese equivalent was allowable because it was disclosed in the specification, stating:
[T]he fact that manganese is a proper substitute for calcium silicate as a major ingredient of the [claimed] welding composition ... is fully disclosed in the specification of their patent.
Linde Air Prods., 86 F.Supp. at 199, 75 USPQ at 238.
In the Supreme Court the alleged in-fringer (the petitioner) urged that the pat-entee, by not claiming manganese, had dedicated it to the public and that the patentee could not reclaim the manganese *1062by describing it in the specification. While the alleged infringer in passing suggested that a specification disclosure would have been a dedication,3 this was hardly the focus of its argument. Rather, the alleged infringer concluded that “[d]is-closure in [the] [specification of Manganese [i]s [ijmmaterial.” Pet’r Br. at 41. Moreover, argued the alleged infringer, the specification did not disclose manganese as an effective substitute,4 and, in fact, the patentees “knowingly excluded” the use of manganese silicate from their patent, in order to avoid a PTO finding of anticipation by an earlier patent. Pet’r Br. at 25.
Ironically it was the respondent (the patentee) that argued that the patent disclosed the equivalent subject matter and that the “substitution was expressly taught by the patent as an equivalent composition.” 5 See also Resp. Br. at 21 (“[The] substitution [was one that] the patent itself teaches.”).6 The patentee explicitly urged that, because of the disclosure in the specification, “[t]he patentees expected, and these infringers were on notice, that the claims were intended to cover not only the compositions literally within their scope but their equivalents as well.” Resp. Br. at 78. The patentee went on to argue that the dedication argument had not been properly raised below.
Given this reversal of the expected positions of the parties with respect to whether the specification disclosed the effectiveness of manganese and the significance of such a disclosure, it is hardly surprising that the Supreme Court majority never addressed the issue of dedication by disclosure in the specification. It is likely that the Supreme Court concluded that the issue of specification disclosure had not been sufficiently raised by the alleged infringer as a ground for rejecting the doctrine of equivalents. (In that connection it is interesting that the Supreme Court found disclosure of manganese in the “prior art” and not in the '960 patent specification itself.) In short, in my view, the better *1063reading of Graver Tank II is that the issue of dedication by specification disclosure simply was not decided. There is thus no holding on this issue that binds this court.

. The district court stated:
In the patent the inventors state, ”[w]e have used calcium silicate and silicates of sodium, barium, iron, manganese, cobalt, magnesium, nickel and aluminum, both in binary and ternary combinations, in various proportions.” Thus, the fact that manganese is a proper substitute for calcium silicate as a major ingredient of the welding composition invented by Jones, Kennedy, and Rotermund is fully disclosed in the specification of their patent. The defendants have urged a construction that would have the sentence in question read, "[w]e have used calcium silicate with or plus silicates of sodium, etc.” It is my view that the correct construction of the sentence is, "[w]e have used calcium silicate and also silicates of sodium, etc.” That this is the correct view is borne out by the first application. That document in part recites: " * * * and there are other materials suitable to form the main body of the flux. Magnesium silicate, manganese silicate or these in combination serve admirably. * * * Particular fluxes that we have used are as follows: * * * (2) manganese silicate MnO.Si02 * ® *.” Accordingly, it is concluded that the patent itself fully discloses that welding compositions composed chiefly of manganese silicate and prepared according to the teachings of the patent are equivalent to those in which the alkaline earth metals are the principal constituents.
Linde Air Prods. Co. v. Graver Tank & Mfg. Co., 86 F.Supp. 191, 199-200, 75 USPQ 231, 238 (N.D.Ind.1947).

. The relevant portion of the specification stated:
We have used calcium silicate and silicates of sodium, barium, iron, manganese, cobalt, magnesium, nickel and aluminum, both in binary and ternary combinations, in various proportions.... While a number of these conductive welding compositions are more or less efficacious in our process, we prefer to use silicates of the alkaline earth metals, such as calcium silicate....
'960 patent, col. 3,11. 62-72.

. Petitioners' Opening Brief Upon Rehearing at 41, n. 32, No. 2, 1949 Term, Graver Tank & Mfg. Co., Inc. v. Linde Air Prods. Co., 339 U.S. 605, 70 S.Ct. 854, 94 L.Ed. 1097 (1950).

. Petitioner argued as follows. (The quotations are from the patent; the bracketed materials within the quotes are petitioner's comments):
Note that the specification does not say-as a matter of reading English-what the trial court thought it said. The specification says: "We have used calcium silicate and silicates of sodium, barium, iron, manganese, cobalt, magnesium, nickel and aluminum, both in binary and ternary combinations, in various proportions [that is, they say they have used, not each of the nine silicates, as the trial court supposed, but calcium silicate combined with one or two of the other silicates mentioned, which, as has been seen, their notes show is precisely what they did use]. * * * While a number of these * * * are more or less efficacious [note that, contrary to the trial court's reading of this language, the patentees do not say all of the nine are more or less efficacious, but only that "a number of" them (that is, some of them, but not all) are more or less efficacious-meaning, plainly enough, that some are not efficacious at all, but that of the "number of” them which are efficacious, some are more efficacious than others-which, again, is precisely what the pat-entees’ notes show] * * * we prefer to use [which again is what their notes show] silicates of the alkaline earth metals, such as calcium silicate.”
Pet'r Br. at 20-21.

. Respondent's Brief on Rehearing at 11, No. 2, 1949 Term, Graver Tank & Mfg. Co., Inc. v. Linde Air Prods. Co., 339 U.S. 605, 70 S.Ct. 854, 94 L.Ed. 1097 (1950).

. So too respondent stated:
Far from having increased the store of knowledge by independent research, petitioners were found guilty of appropriating their flux, directly from the text of the patent.
Resp. Br. at 32 (emphasis added).