Court Opinion

ID: 9462256
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:36:29.354615+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:30.182177
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Chief Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in parts I, II and IV of the majority opinion. I do not agree with *784all of part III. I would remand the case to the District Court for further proceedings. Accordingly, I dissent from the decision to affirm.
It is respectfully submitted that the record does not contain sufficient evidence from which the consent decree can be construed to have the breadth attributed to it by the District Court and by the majority opinion. If the consent decree is given such a broad interpretation, the owner of the patent might receive a monopoly greater than granted by the Patent Office. This could raise a serious question of public policy.
I therefore, would remand with instructions, rather than affirming on the issue of contempt. This procedure would enable the District Court to make a proper determination of the meaning of the consent decree and a proper determination on the issue of infringement. It may be that the District Court on remand would reach the same ultimate conclusion on the issue of contempt. My proposed remand would permit the District Judge to accomplish this result by proper procedure rather than on findings which I submit to be inconsistent in some respects,1 and on a consent decree whose meaning is not clear to me.
The District Court held in finding of fact No. 41 that the determination of contempt rested on the equivalency of the series 892 and 893 devices and the newly accused weatherstripping, without regard to the scope and content of the claims of the Horton patent. 381 F.Supp. at 653. It has long been ruled that “[t]he question, then, is whether the modified structure is the equivalent of the original in its relation to the patent in suit,” Field Body Corp. v. Highland Body Mfg. Co., 13 F.2d 626, 627 (6th Cir. 1926). However, this court has rejected the proposition that “the only proper test of whether there has been contempt of a patent injunction is whether the presently accused device is the equivalent of the device originally found to have infringed the patent.” Hirs v. Detroit Filter Corp., 424 F.2d 1040, 1041 (6th Cir. 1970). In that case we also held that “[wjhere the injunction prohibits further infringement of the invention embodied in specific claims of specific patents, one of the issues presented to the District Court in a contempt action is whether the presently accused device infringes the patent claims” 424 F.2d at 1041. See also, Wadsworth Electric Mfg. Co. v. Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co., 71 F.2d 850, 852 (6th Cir. 1934).
I have difficulty in determining the scope of the consent decree because its terms are vague as to the limits of the prohibited conduct. The decree states that USM has infringed the Horton patent “by making and/or selling pile weatherstripping having a flexible, im*785pervious barrier in the pile as represented by USM’s series 892 and 893 embodying the inventions disclosed and claimed [in the Horton patent].” The decree then proceeds to enjoin and restrain “the unauthorized making or using or selling or inducing others to use pile weatherstripping ... as represented by USM’s series 892 and 893.” This language could be construed to have three distinct meanings: (1) It could be read to mean that USM is enjoined from making weatherstripping “constructed specifically according to” their old embodiments (This construction would provide a lesser degree of protection than that of the patent claims.); (2) it could be read to prohibit further infringement of the patent; and (3) it could be taken as a broad prohibition against all similar types of weatherstripping, irrespective of infringement.
The District Court refused to hear extrinsic evidence as to the meaning of the injunctive language, stating:
We are not going to put anything pri- or to [the decree] in this case. We start from the Entry that was agreed upon by you . . . . It was signed by me upon agreement of the parties. Now we start from there. I am not interested in anything prior to that time.
I would hold that under the particular circumstances of this case the District Court erred in refusing to consider the excluded evidence. It has been held that “A consent decree represents an agreement by the parties which the court cannot expand or contract,” Artvale, Inc. v. Rugby Fabrics Corp., 303 F.2d 283, 284 (2d Cir. 1962); see United States v. Armour & Co., 402 U.S. 673, 681-82, 91 S.Ct. 1752, 29 L.Ed.2d 256 (1971). I agree with the majority opinion as to the dangers of encroachment on the sanctity of consent decrees. However, in construing the meaning of the consent decree in the present case, the court may make reference to other material to ascertain the meaning of the ambiguous terms in the decree. The role of the court is not to “expand or contract” the decree, but to determine what the parties intended when they chose the language in the decree. Evidence relating to the prior negotiations, the settlement agreement and the purchase agreement is therefore admissible for the narrow purpose of defining and delineating the meaning of the ambiguous injunctive portion of the decree. Cf. Artvale, Inc. v. Rugby Fabrics Corp., supra, 303 F.2d at 284.
I would remand the case to the District Court for further proceedings on that issue. On remand I would direct the District Court to consider the evidence previously rejected as to the meaning of the injunctive language in the consent decree.
If the decree should be found to prohibit the specific manufacture of weatherstripping “constructed specifically according to” series 892 and 893, then the court should determine if the accused weatherstripping is substantially identical to series 892 and 893. In making this determination the scope and content of the weatherstripping art would be relevant to determine what magnitude of departure from the design of the enjoined structure goes beyond the decree. For example, a change which superficially appears to be slight may be substantially different in view of the weatherstripping prior art.
If the consent decree should be found to prohibit further infringement of the Horton patent, I would direct the District Court first to determine if there is literal infringement by comparing the accused device to the Horton claims. If there is no literal infringement, the District Court should determine whether there is infringement under the doctrine of equivalents. On the issue of the doctrine of equivalents, the history of the prosecution of the Horton application before the Patent Office would be particularly relevant on the issue of whether certain claim limitations have created a file wrapper estoppel.
If the consent decree should be determined to be broader than any of the foregoing interpretations then the District Court should consider what conduct *786is specifically prohibited by the injunction, and whether USM has violated the injunction by the manufacture of the accused device.
In the usual case a consent decree’s prohibition, at most, will be coextensive with the protection afforded by the claims of the patent. Violation of the decree is to be determined by comparing the newly accused device with the patent claims according to the usual theories of infringement. I re-emphasize that a more expansive reading of the decree might operate to bestow upon a patentee a greater monopoly than he could obtain from the Patent Office.
If on remand the District Court should find that there has been a violation of the injunctive provisions of the consent decree, a determination then would be made as to whether the holder of the Johnson patent, which was presumed to be valid under 35 U.S.C. § 282, was entitled to rely upon it in good faith. If on remand the District Court should determine that there are any such factors of mitigation, then consideration could be given to the issuance of a supplemental injunction, rather than a contempt citation and accounting, as an appropriate remedy.

. Finding No. 23, 381 F.Supp. at 652, states that the enjoined structure “used the same elements to accomplish the same purpose in the same way as the patented structure . . .” Finding No. 30 also repeats substantially the same test. These are the tests of infringement under the doctrine of equivalents. See Acme Highway Products Corp. v. D. S. Brown Co., 473 F.2d 849, 850-51 (6th Cir. 1973). However, the District Court expressly disclaimed infringement under the doctrine of equivalents in Finding No. 40, 381 F.Supp. at 653, stating that “The doctrine of file wrapper estoppel is applicable only when the doctrine of equivalents is resorted to for proving infringement. . There is literal infringement here and no available file wrapper estoppel defense.” Therefore, even if the District Judge may have believed that there was infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, he gave his findings a label of literal infringement.
Yet there are no specific findings of fact supporting an ultimate finding of literal infringement. Finding No. 25 negatives any inference of literal infringement in Finding No. 24. The nearest thing to a finding of literal infringement is expressed in Finding No. 26, where it is stated that “The Horton patent teaches that the barrier strip may be bonded to the base strip and to the pile fibers.” With utmost deference, I submit that this statement is not relevant to the issue of infringement, but is relevant only to the issue of validity of the Johnson patent.
Further, I am impressed that the file wrapper estoppel defense is strong in this case and should have been considered. However, since the District Court expressly held that this defense is not available, I do not believe Finding No. 42 is decisive. Finding No. 42 may be close to a finding of file wrapper estoppel, but it is phrased in terms of “equitable estoppel.”