Court Opinion

ID: 9471720
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:39:42.33112+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:33.018107
License: Public Domain

NIES, Circuit Judge,
dissenting-in-part.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion and would hold the product claims 1 and 3 and process claims 5 and 8 of the ’424 patent invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 102 and all claims obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103. The claims appear in the attached appendix.
I
A number of prior references show or describe the identical method of insertion of leather strips diagonally into a fur pelt utilized by the inventor. Indeed, the district court specifically found that “leathering” (which encompasses a variety of techniques, not merely diagonal insertion of leather of uniform width) was “well known in the furrier trade.” A comparison of the drawing in ’424 with a drawing in the Schirmer reference illustrates the identity of Lei-noff’s method with the prior art:
*744[[Image here]]
The court, nevertheless, found Leinoff’s method patentable over the prior art because of the limitation in the subject claim that the leather strips, when inserted, “expose said light portions of the pelt hairs and produce a striped effect.”
The district court and the majority are correct in that an anticipatory reference within the meaning of § 102 must disclose all elements or steps of the claimed invention. However, to be anticipatory, a reference need not expressly disclose what is inherent. As stated in In re Swinehart, 439 F.2d 210, 212-13, 58 CCPA 1027, 169 USPQ 226, 229 (1971):
[I]t is elementary that the mere recitation of a newly discovered function or property, inherently possessed by things in the prior art, does not cause a claim drawn to those things to distinguish over the prior art.
In this case, the prior art discloses Lei-noff’s method of leathering. What is not expressly stated in the prior art reference is the result, i.e., leathering so as to produce a striped effect from the natural coloration of the fur. However, as the inventor Leinoff himself admitted, this is inherent when certain types of furs are leathered on the diagonal. His testimony is unequivocal:
Q. In your opinion, Mr. Leinoff, would it be fair to say in the case of at least some badger pelts, if it was leathered on the diagonal with close to the minimum width tape commercially available, that you would get some striped effect?
A. On some badgers, yes.
Appellant’s exhibit of a leathered badger pelt, the front and back sides of which are shown below, confirms this admission, if more proof is necessary:
[[Image here]]
A comparison with Schirmer shows that the above exhibit duplicates the leather insertions shown in the Schirmer diagram and results in a striped pelt. Moreover, the testimony is uncontradicted that leathering strips are commercially available in standard sizes and that the exhibit was prepared with minimum width strips. The majority apparently discounts Schirmer because it deals with “Japanese” badger. However, another prior art reference, Kaplan, also recommends that badger be leathered, with *745no restriction as to type of badger, but “Japanese” badger is included as one type of badger with variegated colored hair.
In any event, the trial judge rejected this exhibit, not because it was “Japanese” badger, but because a later reference, Rauchwarenherstellung und Pelzkonfektion, stated that, in one of the leathering techniques described therein, the “undercoat is not to be separated.” The earlier Schirmer reference is silent as to whether the fur strips are separated, that is, pulled apart to such an extent that the lighter underhair is revealed thereby causing the stripes. On the other hand, the prior art, Post U.S. Patent No. 2,558,279 and Schatz U.S. Patent No. 2,196,273, and, indeed, the Rauchwarenherstellung und Pelzkonfektion reference, discloses leathering techniques where fur strips are physically separated, as the court itself noted. Thus, the record shows that separation can occur in “leathering” and that the court’s conclusion that the subject exhibit could not have been made in accordance with the prior art because the fur strips were separated is clearly erroneous. The record clearly establishes that anyone who performs leathering on badger using one of the conventional techniques must, in doing so, produce a striped pelt. Striping naturally flows from practicing the known method. As stated in 1 P. Rosenberg, Patent Law Fundamentals § 7.02 (2d Ed.1983):
It is axiomatic that one who performs the steps of a process must, in so doing, necessarily produce all its advantages, for these naturally flow from it and, indeed, are an inseparable part of it. To grant a patent for the mere recognition of even a previously wholly unknown advantage would involve the removal of the physical means needed to produce that advantage from the public domain. Mere recitation of a newly discovered function or property that is inherently possessed by things in the prior art does not cause a claim drawn to those things to distinguish over the prior art.15
Thus, even if Leinoff discovered that leath-ering, where the cut fur was separated, caused the advantage of stripes in pelts of variegated colored hair, that discovery does not cause the claimed method to distinguish from the prior art teaching of leathering with separation. However, as discussed infra, in this case the “advantage” was not even unknown but rather was not considered an “advantage.”
Thus, Leinoff’s method claim 5 which encompasses leathering all long-haired variegated colored fur pelts and method claim 8 which is limited to leathering badger (a type of that kind of pelt) are fully anticipated because striping is inherent in a known process as applied to at least some types of badger.
By the same token, product claims 1 and 3 are anticipated.1 As Leinoff admitted: “There is nothing new in the technology of putting pelts together [to make a coat] and leather into the pelts.”
II
I would- further hold that all of appellee’s method claims 5-8 for making a striped pelt would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the furrier art.
As noted, the trial court held that the only material difference between the prior art and the claimed subject matter is that the leather strips are inserted so as to produce a striped effect.
Again, turning to the testimony of the inventor, Mr. Leinoff admits that skilled furriers had, for many years, purposely spaced the fur strips at a distance sufficient to avoid exposing the lighter portion of the *746underground. His testimony on this point specifically was:
The leather does not show unless, of course, if you raised the fur, and we have come out with the shingle effect, plus the striping effect, which you see here, which is something that all furriers have been trying to avoid up until this time. Because the whole thinking of fur has been how not to disturb the surface of the fur, how to make it look like it wasn’t disturbed.
Here we unequivocally put leather in for the purpose of creating a striped effect. [Emphasis added.]
While other experts also testified that the usual objective was to maintain the natural appearance of the fur, Rauchwarenherstel-lung also speaks of using leathering for the purpose of “achieving fashion effects” by “interrupt[ing] the profile effect of the fur cross-section.” In a sense the prior art primarily provides a negative teaching but a negative teaching is, nevertheless, a teaching to one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Boe, 355 F.2d 961, 965, 53 CCPA 1079, 148 USPQ 507, 510 (1966); In re Smith, 148 F.2d 351, 353-54, 32 CCPA 959, 65 USPQ 167, 170 (1945). Thus, the solution to the problem of creating a striped effect if desired would not have been even a modest challenge to a person of ordinary skill as a furrier. It would have been obvious.
Since the technique would have been obvious, Milona argues that others avoided the striped effect only because the product was considered unattractive or unfashionable. This conclusion, in my view, comports with the trial court’s statement, “[T]he entire cast of the furrier trade was to maintain in the product the natural appearance of the fur.” Thus, the situation here is analogous to that in Orthopedic Equipment Co. v. United States, 702 F.2d 1005, 217 USPQ 193 (Fed.Cir.1983), in which this court stated:
In other words, the fact that the two disclosed apparatus would not be combined by businessmen for economic reasons is not the same as saying that it could not be done because skilled persons in the art felt that there was some technological incompatibility that prevents their combination. Only the latter fact is telling on the issue of non-obviousness.
702 F.2d at 1013, 217 USPQ at 200.
Similarly here, if a striped pattern was not created before by leathering long-haired variegated color fur, it was not because of any technological difficulty to one skilled in the art. Further, if striped long-haired coats are now saleable because of a change in taste fostered by Leinoff, the creation of this “new want” cannot turn an obvious technique, or the product produced through that technique described in claims 1-4, into a patentable invention.2
Moreover, while Mr. Leinoff has enjoyed at least modest commercial success with his striped coats, the record does not establish that the basis for his success is due to a particular method of making a coat. Such success could as likely be due to successful merchandising or to the current popularity of long-haired fur garments in general.
As a final matter, I do not find it necessary to overturn any fact finding by the trial court underlying the issue of obviousness. It is the court’s legal conclusion that is in error.
Ill
For the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the decision of the district court on the issue of validity.
APPENDIX

Claims of Leinoff Patent No. 3,760,424

1. As an article of manufacture, a composite pelt formed of fur strips cut from a long haired pelt in which the tip portions of the pelt hairs are dark and the remainder of the hairs, between the skin and the dark tips, is light; and connector strips opera-*747tively connected to and alternated with said first strips whereby each connector strip is positioned between two fur strips with said connector strips having a width dimension between adjacent fur strips selected to be greater than the length of the dark tip portions of the pelt hairs and less than the length of the pelt hairs, whereby the pelt hairs on said fur strips extend across adjacent connector strips with the dark tips of the pelt hairs overlying the light portions of the pelt hairs on the next fur strip, thereby to expose said light portions of the pelt hairs and produce a striped effect.
2. An article of manufacture as described in claim 1 wherein the angle between the side edges of said connector strip and the general direction of the pelt hairs is of the order of 45°.
3. An article of manufacture as described in claim 2 wherein said connector strips are of leather.
4. An article of manufacture as described in claim 3 which includes additional composite pelts described and formed into a fur coat or the like.
5. The method of producing fur coats and the like from long haired fur pelts in which the tip portions of the pelt hairs are dark and the remainder of the hairs, between the skin and the dark tips is light, which method comprises, the steps of cutting a pelt into fur strips of substantially the same width at a substantial angle to the general direction in which the pelt hairs normally repose, maintaining said fur strips in their normal relative positions, inserting an insert strip of substantially uniform width between each fur strip and the next, the width dimension of said insert strips being selected to be greater than the length of the dark tip portions of the pelt hairs and less than the length of the pelt hairs, attaching the adjacent edges of the fur strips and the adjacent insert strips to produce a composite pelt which is longer and wider than the original pelt and in which the hair from each fur strip normally reposes across one of the next adjacent insert strips at an angle to its longitudinal dimension whereby the pelt hairs on said fur strips extend across adjacent insert strips with the dark tips of the pelt hairs overlying the light portions of the pelt hairs on the next fur strip, thereby to expose said light portions of the pelt hairs and produce a striped effect.
6. The method as described in claim 5 which includes the additional steps of producing a plurality of additional composite pelts by repeating the above steps, and assembling the composite pelts into a coat or the like.
7. The method' as described in claim 5 wherein the fur strips are held together after the first step by an uncut edge portion of the original pelt.
8. The method as described in claim 5 wherein the pelt is a badger pelt.

. Appellee does not argue that a striped coat or

 General Elec. Co. v. Incandescent Lamp Co., 326 U.S. 242, 248-9 [66 S.Ct. 81, 83-84, 90 L.Ed. 43], 67 U.S.P.Q. 155, 157-58 (1945); In re Oelrich, 666 F.2d 578, 581, 212 U.S.P.Q. 323, 326 (C.C.P.A.1981); In re Lange, 644 F.2d 856, 864, 209 U.S.P.Q. 288, 295 (C.C.P.A.1981); In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252, 1254, 195 U.S.P.Q. 430, 433 (C.C.P.A.1977); In re Smythe, 480 F.2d 1376, 1384, 178 U.S.P.Q. 279, 285 (C.C.P.A.1973); In re Swinehart, 439 F.2d 210, 212-13 [58 CCPA 1027], 169 U.S.P.Q. 226, 229 (C.C.P.A.1971). pelt is novel apart from the claimed method.

. No argument is made that any claims are patentable if independent claims 1 and 5 fall. Accordingly, there is no need to discuss the prior art which shows the particular limitations in each claim.