Court Opinion

ID: 9471180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:26:22.731678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:17.927289
License: Public Domain

CORNELIA G. KENNEDY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I concur in full in the majority’s opinion with respect to the ’335 patent and the denial of attorney’s fees. However, I would affirm the judgment of the District Court that the claims of the ’926 patent are fully anticipated by the Kansas City scoreboard and are therefore barred under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b). I agree with most of the legal propositions stated by the majority. My disagreement is primarily with their application of those principles on three specific and dispositive points.
First, I cannot agree that the usual presumption of validity afforded by 25 U.S.C. § 282 is enhanced because the ’335 and ’926 patents were pending before the same examiner. The defendants’ claim of anticipation is based on the Kansas City scoreboard itself not the ’335 patent. This actual device was not cited as prior art in the plaintiff’s application for the ’926 patent. Admittedly, the patent examiner had in the file wrapper for the ’335 patent schematic diagrams of portions of the Kansas City scoreboard. The important point, however, is that the examiner did not cite the Kansas City scoreboard as prior art. Thus, we do not know if he considered the diagrams included in the ’335 file wrapper much less the Kansas City scoreboard in relation to the ’926 patent.1 In Park-Ohio Industries, Inc. v. Letica Corporation, 617 F.2d 450, 453-54 (6th Cir.1980), this Court held that:
[T]he failure of the examiner, Hall, who was also the examiner for the Bardell patent, to cite such highly relevant prior art as Bardell and Hurtt in the patent file history seriously weakens this presumption. See Reynolds Metals Co. v. Acorn Bldg. Components, Inc., 548 F.2d 155, 160 (6th Cir.1977); Bolkcom v. Carborundum Co., 523 F.2d 492, 498 (6th *280Cir.), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 951, 96 S.Ct. 1725, 48 L.Ed.2d 194 (1975); Schnadig Corp. v. Gaines Mfg. Co., 494 F.2d 383, 390 (6th Cir.1974).
I believe this principle to be equally applicable to the present case.2
My second disagreement with the majority concerns its use of the ’926 specifications to distinguish that patent from the Kansas City scoreboard. The majority acknowledges that specifications may not be used to expand a patent’s claims. The majority nevertheless reads the ’926 patent “in light of” its specifications in order to distinguish it from the prior art embodied in the Kansas City scoreboard. In so doing, I believe that the majority has impermissibly added to the claims of the ’926 patent. The rule is well stated in Philips Industries, Inc. v. State Stove and Manufacturing Company, Inc., 522 F.2d 1137, 1140 (6th Cir.1975):
Although the claims must be read in light of the specification, see United States v. Adams, 383 U.S. 39, 49, 86 S.Ct. 708 [713], 15 L.Ed.2d 572 (1966), specific elements, completely absent in the claims, may not be inferred by reference to the specification. This is particularly crucial where, as here, the elements not set forth in the claims are the lineh-pin of patentability, (emphasis added)
Aside from the preamble there is nothing in the claims which addresses the invention now claimed, a system for displaying images capable of at least eight levels of light intensity. One should not have to go to the specifications to determine what is claimed. Indeed Stewart-Warner has vigorously and continually asserted that the preamble should be read as a limitation on element h, the element which is the invention. (Stewart-Warner does not contend that the other elements of the claim are new.)
Olympic Fastening Systems, Inc. v. Textron, Inc., 504 F.2d 609 (6th Cir.1974), relied upon by the majority is distinguishable from the present case. In Olympic, the claim required that a blind head be pulled “into and through” a tubular rivet. In determining whether a product infringed the patent claim the District Court held that language “through” meant “through and out of.” Our Court reversed saying that examination of the specifications showed that “through” was not used in the strict sense of through and out but also included through to a predetermined distance which could be flush with the exposed rivet head. The Court was interpreting ambiguous language in the claim; it was not looking to the specification to find out the invention.
The preamble to the ’926 patent may not, in my opinion, provide an. element not found in the claims and needed in order to distinguish prior art. The District Court held that the preamble phrase “capable of at least eight levels of light intensity” only modified the display matrix also described in the preamble. On appeal the plaintiff has successfully argued that the ’926 preamble should be incorporated into each paragraph of the ’926 claim, and in particular into item 4. Plaintiff concedes that the language of the preamble would have to be modified from “full display matrix capable of at least eight levels of light intensity” to some language that the full system be capable of energizing the matrix with eight or more levels of light intensity. Plaintiff never states exactly how the claim as modified would read. Thus, the language of the preamble is at best ambiguous. In Arshal v. United States, 223 Ct.Cl. 179, 621 F.2d 421 (1980), the court held that where the words of the preamble are ambiguous “a compelling reason must exist before the language can be given weight.” Id. 621 F.2d at 431. I believe that application of such a rule is appropriate to the present case.
I agree that
[I]f the claim cannot be read independent of the preamble and the preamble must be read to give meaning to the claim or is essential to point out the invention, it constitutes a limitation upon the claim. *281See Kropa v. Robie, 187 F.2d 150, 38 C.C.P.A. Patents 858 (U.S.Ct.P.A.1951).
Marston v. J.C. Penney Company, 353 F.2d 976, 986 (4th Cir.1965). However, here the claims can be read independently of the preamble. Unfortunately, so read they read on prior art, the scoreboard. In Marston, the court refused to limit a patent’s claim by the language of the preamble when so limited the accused article would not infringe. The preamble called for a flexible buoyant filler pad. The infringing chaise was neither buoyant nor a filler pad. The Marston court went on to hold:
In the present case the preamble does not describe a unique article to which the claim alone is referable, cf. Benoit v. Wadley Co., 54 F.2d 1041 (7 Cir.1932), and the preamble is not essential to a reading and understanding of the claim. The invention arises from the combination and arrangement of the various elements described in the claims and the portion of the claims following the preamble is a self-contained description of the invention.
Id. at 986. The same is true in the case at bar.
Accordingly, I dissent.

. Seeing a movie of the Kansas City scoreboard in operation would not alert the examiner that it may anticipate the ’926 patent.

. The majority states that since the ’335 patent had not been granted, it could not have appeared in the prior art references. The District Court did not find that the ’926 patent was anticipated by the ’335 patent but by the scoreboard.