Court Opinion

ID: 9454000
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:32:12.079071+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:55.344425
License: Public Domain

CRAVEN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The Examiner rejected all of Porter’s claims for the reason that to “use an insert such as shown in Cross or Colby in a saber type saw such as is shown by Forsberg is not considered invention. It would only amount to a matter of mechanical skill to mount such an insert in the base plate * * * of Forsberg if desired.” Thereafter, Claims 1, 4 and 5 were cancelled and Claims 2 and 3 were amended by inserting the words “free floating” before the phrase “limited lateral movement of the insert relative to the base plate.” It was argued to the Examiner that: “Applicants wish to place particular emphasis upon the fact that the insert is free floating. This is very important since when portable saws of this nature are to be commercially manufactured, it is impossible to make the tolerances on the parts of the saw such that no mis-alignment of the blade will result. Therefore, in order to compensate for this mis-alignment but at the same time prevent chipping of the work piece, any insert which is used with a portable saw of this type must be free to float or move laterally in the base plate.”
On the next official action, the claims which included the “free floating” characteristic were allowed, but Claim 1, which simply called for an insert having capability of “limited movement relative to the base plate in a plane parallel thereto,” was finally rejected and was can-celled by Porter.
There is nothing new in this patent unless it be the “free floating” insert. Inserts for various purposes, including facilitating sawing, are old. It does not seem to me to be invention to fit an insert loosely into the base plate of a saber saw. As one of Porter’s own employees testified, “if this thing was going to work it had to be a loose fit * * Asked whether “it just seems perfectly obvious to you that it was necessary to have a loose fit between these parts?”, the same witness replied, “That’s right.”
I am of the opinion that the claims in the patent are obvious to one skilled in the art and anticipated by the prior patents discussed in the opinion of the district court. Porter-Cable Mach. Co. v. Black & Decker Mfg. Co., 274 F.Supp. 905 (D.Md. Nov. 3, 1967).
If the patent be deemed valid, I would hold it not infringed by Black and Decker’s saber saw and its insert. This insert is of a flexible material which is squeezed or depressed into the socket. It is a tight fit rather than a loose fit although the softness and resilience of the material permits a giving way to the motion of the saw blade. Certainly it does not move laterally nor float freely. File wrapper estoppel bars the application of the doctrine of substantial equivalents. Carter Prods., Inc. v. Colgate-Palmolive Co., 269 F.2d 299 (4th Cir. 1959).
*521OPINION AND ORDER ON PETITION FOR REHEARING
In its petition for rehearing, the appellant misreads our opinion. The District Court’s adjudication of patentability is not upheld as a finding of fact; as plainly stated, it is sustained “as a conclusion of law”. After accepting the trial court’s fact findings of novelty and utility, and its “basic factual inquiries”, Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17, 86 S.Ct. 684, 15 L.Ed.2d 545 (1966), in respect to obviousness, we held as a matter of law the improvement in the device in suit to be patentable. Our opinion’s inclusion of “obviousness” as a factual issue referred to these “basic factual inquiries”. Incidentally, we have no occasion now to classify the ultimate issue of obviousness as one of fact or law; we join in the District Judge’s determination, whether of fact or law, that the assertion of obviousness was not sustained.
Rehearing denied.