Court Opinion

ID: 9948115
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-06 16:01:59.083118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:29:08.676109
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1121   Document: 55    Page: 1    Filed: 03/06/2024

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

  IN RE: JUSTIN SAMUELS, SAMUEL ROCKWELL,
                    Appellants
              ______________________

                       2022-1121
                 ______________________

     Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
 Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. 29/577,270.
                   ______________________

                 Decided: March 6, 2024
                 ______________________

    TODD STEVEN SHARINN, Gilbride, Tusa, Last &
 Spellane LLC, Greenwich, CT, for appellants.

    BRIAN RACILLA, Office of the Solicitor, United States
 Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, for appellee
 Katherine K. Vidal. Also represented by PETER J. AYERS,
 AMY J. NELSON, FARHEENA YASMEEN RASHEED.
                 ______________________

    Before TARANTO, CHEN, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.
 PER CURIAM.
     This is a design patent application case. Appellants
 Justin Samuels and Samuel Rockwell filed U.S. Design Pa-
 tent Application No. 29/577,270, titled “Waffle Having a
 Waffle Pattern Side and a Smooth Side,” on September 12,
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 2                                          IN RE: SAMUELS

 2016. The assigned examiner in the U.S. Patent and
 Trademark Office rejected the claim under 35 U.S.C.
 § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by the Belgian Waffle
 Sandwich Video 1 (a video posted publicly on YouTube).
 The Patent Trial and Appeal Board affirmed the exam-
 iner’s rejection. J.A. 1. The applicants timely appealed.
 We have jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4); 35 U.S.C.
 § 141(a). We affirm.
                             I
     The ’270 application is directed to an “ornamental de-
 sign for a waffle having a waffle patterned side and a
 smooth side.” J.A. 30 (cleaned up). Figures 1 and 3 of the
 ’270 application (reproduced below) show a perspective
 view from above and a bottom view, respectively, of the
 claimed design. J.A. 30. As shown in Figure 1, the top of
 the claimed design includes a waffle pattern, and as shown
 in Figure 3, the bottom of the claimed design is flat.

                      J.A. 31, FIG. 1.

     1   @theendorsement, Dunkin Donuts® - Belgian Waf-
 fle Breakfast Sandwich Review # 328, YOUTUBE (Aug. 30,
 2016), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TN9kBtgTqxM.
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 IN RE: SAMUELS                                            3

                       J.A. 32, FIG. 3.
      During examination, the examiner finally rejected the
 claim under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by
 the Belgian Waffle Sandwich Video. J.A. 158. The Belgian
 Waffle Sandwich Video is a review of a waffle sandwich
 that includes two waffles and filling between the two waf-
 fles. Providing annotated screenshots from this video (re-
 produced below), the examiner concluded that the
 appearance of the prior-art waffle “having a waffle pattern
 side and smooth side . . . is substantially the same as that
 of the claimed design.” J.A. 159, 161.

                          J.A. 159.
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 4                                             IN RE: SAMUELS

                          J.A. 161.
      Appellants appealed the final rejection to the Board,
 first alleging that the Belgian Waffle Sandwich Video does
 not disclose that an inner surface of the waffle is flat and
 then arguing that the ’270 application was reduced to prac-
 tice before the publication date of the video. After conduct-
 ing a hearing, the Board issued its decision rejecting
 appellants’ arguments and affirming the examiner’s antic-
 ipation rejection. J.A. 1, 11.
                              II
     We review the Board’s legal determinations de novo,
 while we review the Board’s factual findings for substantial
 evidence. Polaris Industries, Inc. v. Arctic Cat, Inc., 882
 F.3d 1056, 1064 (Fed. Cir. 2018)). Anticipation is a ques-
 tion of fact and, in the design patent context, involves ap-
 plying the ordinary observer test. International Seaway
 Trading Corp. v. Walgreens Corp., 589 F.3d 1233, 1237–38
 (Fed. Cir. 2009). Under that test, a prior-art design antic-
 ipates the claimed design “if, in the eye of an ordinary ob-
 server, giving such attention as a purchaser usually gives,
 [the] two designs are substantially the same, if the resem-
 blance is such as to deceive such an observer, inducing him
 to purchase one supposing it to be the other.” Id. at 1239
 (quoting Gorham Manufacturing Co. v. White, 81 U.S. 511,
 528 (1871)).
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 IN RE: SAMUELS                                              5

      Substantial evidence supports the Board’s determina-
 tion that the Belgian Waffle Sandwich Video anticipates
 the design for a waffle claimed in the ’270 application. 2 The
 Board considered as a whole both the claimed waffle and
 the prior-art waffle, comparing their outer surfaces, inner
 surfaces, and side views. J.A. 3–4, 8–9. The Board found
 that, contrary to what appellants alleged, the Belgian Waf-
 fle Sandwich Video discloses that the prior-art waffle has a
 flat inner surface, identifying (1) a side view of the waffle
 sandwich suggesting the inner surface of the waffle is flat,
 (2) another view showing that the egg filling of the waffle
 sandwich is flat and thus suggesting that the inner surface
 of the waffle is flat, and (3) yet another view showing a par-
 tially open waffle sandwich with a flat inner surface of the
 waffle visible. J.A. 9.
     On appeal, aside from recycling their arguments as to
 the Belgian Waffle Sandwich Video’s failure to disclose the
 flat inner surface, appellants catalogue several other al-
 leged differences between the prior-art waffle and the
 claimed waffle design, including the amount of deformation
 around the edges, coloration, and flexibility. Samuels

     2    The Board, in evaluating the evidence of record, re-
 ferred to the “substantial evidence” standard of review
 multiple times. J.A. 8–9. This standard of review origi-
 nates from statutory provisions in the Administrative Pro-
 cedure Act that dictate this court’s standard of review of
 Board decisions—not the Board’s standard for evaluating
 examiner actions. In re Gartside, 203 F.3d 1305, 1316 (Fed.
 Cir. 2000); 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(E). Appellants do not allege
 any reversible error arising from the Board’s reference to
 the “substantial evidence” standard. We note that the
 Board’s own precedential decision counsels review of “the
 particular finding(s) contested by an appellant anew in
 light of all the evidence and argument on that issue.” Ex
 Parte Frye, 94 U.S.P.Q.2d 1072, 1075 (B.P.A.I. 2010).
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 6                                              IN RE: SAMUELS

 Opening Br. 10–23. Appellants, however, fail to describe
 how any of these alleged differences would alter, to an or-
 dinary observer, the “overall visual impression” of the
 prior-art waffle as compared to claimed waffle design. In-
 ternational Seaway, 589 F.3d at 1243; see Lanard Toys Ltd.
 v. Dolgencorp LLC, 958 F.3d 1337, 1343 (Fed. Cir. 2020)
 (describing that the ordinary observer test “is not an ele-
 ment-by-element comparison” and instead requires the
 factfinder to “compare similarities in overall designs, not
 similarities of ornamental features in isolation” (cleaned
 up)).
      Appellants also cast doubt on the reliability of the find-
 ings drawn from the Belgian Waffle Sandwich Video, con-
 tending that the examiner relied on a “fuzzy and split-
 second glimpse” of an inner surface of the prior-art waffle.
 Samuels Opening Br. 17–19. But from watching the video,
 the Board—video quality and duration of inner surface vis-
 ibility notwithstanding—identified specific views from
 which it was able to discern the features that appellants
 argued were absent from the prior-art. J.A. 9. We see no
 reason to disturb the Board’s findings of fact regarding the
 video’s disclosure.
     Appellants lastly contend that the ’270 application was
 constructively reduced to practice before the publication
 date of the Belgian Waffle Sandwich Video, and thus the
 video is disqualified as prior art. Samuels Opening Br. 30–
 31. The ’270 application, however, was filed on Septem-
 ber 12, 2016, well after the Leahy-Smith America Invents
 Act’s (AIA) first-to-file regime took effect on March 16,
 2013. SNIPR Technologies Ltd. v. Rockefeller University,
 72 F.4th 1372, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2023). Even if appellants
 were able to show an earlier conception or an earlier con-
 structive reduction to practice, such a showing would be ir-
 relevant to the inquiry required under post-AIA 35 U.S.C.
 § 102(a)(1)—namely whether the claimed invention was
 described in the publicly available video “before the effec-
 tive filing date of the claimed invention.” 35 U.S.C.
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 IN RE: SAMUELS                                               7

 § 102(a)(1) (emphasis added). Here, appellants do not con-
 tend that its ’270 application is entitled to the benefit of an
 earlier filing date.
                               III
     The decision of the Board is affirmed.
                         AFFIRMED