Court Opinion

ID: 9456725
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:01:03.374854+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:05.256724
License: Public Domain

JONES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The patent which is the subject of this appeal has been hindsighted by the majority into invalidity. We do not here have a dormant field where no one was attempting to advance the art. The need for a device which would do an efficient job of boll separation had been apparent for a long time. Hesston and others had sought for years to effect a mechanism which would accomplish this purpose. After years of effort, Deere, through the mechanism covered by the Sanderson patent, achieved the desired result.
Although the device is now obvious to the majority, it eluded for a long time the searches and researches of the experts in the area of the art. The language of the Supreme Court in the Goodyear-Ray-O-Vae ease is pertinent. There it is said:
“Viewed after the event, the means Anthony adopted seem simple and such as should have been obvious to those who worked in the field, but this is not enough to negative invention. During a period of half a century, in which the use of flash light batteries increased enormously, and the manufacturers of flash light cells were conscious of the defects in them, no one devised a method of curing such defects. Once the method was discovered it commended itself to the public as evidenced by marked commercial success. These factors were entitled to weight in determining whether the improvement amounted to invention and should, in a close case tip the scales in favor of patentability. Accepting, as we do, the findings below, we hold the patent valid and infringed.” Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. v. Ray-O-Vac Co., 321 U.S. 275, 64 S.Ct. 593, 88 L.Ed. 721. See also Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 86 S.Ct. 684, 15 L.Ed.2d 545.
Pertinent also is the following language of the Supreme Court:
“Many things, and the patent law abounds in illustrations, seem obvious after they have been done, and, ‘in the light of the accomplished result,’ it is often a matter of wonder how they so long ‘eluded the search of the discoverer and set at defiance the speculations of inventive genius.’ Pearl v. *908Ocean Mills, [Fed.Cas. No. 10,876] 11 Off. Gaz. 2. Knowledge after the event is always easy, and problems once solved present no difficulties, indeed, may be represented as never having had any * * *.” Diamond Rubber Co. of New York v. Consolidated Rubber Tire Co., 220 U.S. 428, 31 S.Ct. 444, 55 L.Ed. 527.
The principle which ought to furnish the guide to the decision here is stated by the Fourth Circuit in this language:
“Obviousness does not mean that one skilled in the art can perceive the solution after it has been found and pointed out by someone else; the test of obviousness is as of an earlier time, when the search is on.” Honolulu Oil Corporation v. Shelby Poultry Co., 4th Cir. 1969, 293 F.2d 127. This Court has said:
“* * * jn determining whether invention exists in a given device, courts should guard against oversimplification through a hindsight view of the problem as originally encountered.” Graham v. Jeoffroy, 5th Cir., 1953, 206 F.2d 769.
The patented device was discovered after years of fruitless search by experts on behalf of both of the parties to this appeal and others. Upon its discovery and manufacture it met with marked commercial success.
I am not persuaded that the early patents show any anticipation of the device of Deere. It seems to me unjust and not in keeping with the spirit or letter of the patent law to deny protection to the unique and useful discovery which had so long eluded the searches of the experts. I dissent.