Court Opinion

ID: 9494903
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:49:36.988817+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:41.515089
License: Public Domain

LOURIE, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I fully concur in the result and the opinion of the court. I write separately to comment on Judge Rader’s concurrence. First, I commend Judge Rader on his creative effort to advance the discussion concerning the doctrine of equivalents. Certainly, he is correct that a patent applicant should include in his patent application whatever is within the scope of his inventive concept and is foreseeable. Having myself been a patent lawyer who drafted many patent applications in my time, that is what I believe the overwhelming majority of patent practitioners do. However, I am not convinced that introducing the concept of foreseeability is the answer to the equivalence dilemma.
I do not agree that the concept of foreseeability would simplify equivalence issues and make them more amenable to summary judgment. In fact, it would raise new factual issues. Determining what is foreseeable would often require expert testimony as to what one skilled in the art would have foreseen. How would a trial judge know whether to grant summary judgment other than to make factual findings? What is foreseeable is quite different from what is disclosed in the patent, as in our case here, which is readily determinable. Foreseeability is not solely a question of law.
Moreover, the concept of foreseeability seems akin to obviousness. Assuming that the concepts are similar, and that foreseeability or obviousness precludes equivalence, would not a plaintiff asserting equivalence have to show that the accused device would not have been obvious, or foreseeable, in order to avoid a finding of nonequivalence? And would not a defendant have to assert that his device was obvious and hence ineligible for equivalence protection in order to escape liability for patent infringement? It seems coun-terintuitive for a patentee to have to assert that an accused device was nonobvious or for the accused to have to assert that it was obvious. A patentee seeking to establish equivalence wants to show that the accused is merely making a minor variation of his invention, an obvious one, not a nonobvious improvement. One accused of infringement wants to show that he has made an important advance, not that he is a copier, and that his device was obvious over the patented invention, or foreseeable.
What about the case of a separately patented accused device, which is thus presumptively nonobvious? For such a device to be eligible for equivalence, the improvement therein would have to be found to be not foreseeable, which would seem to run counter to the frequent rubric that equivalence requires substantially the same function, way, and result, a test that is closer to obviousness, not nonobviousness. Should a manufacturer planning to market a product that is close to the claims of an issued patent have to forego a patent in order to be able to assert that its device would have been obvious, hence foreseeable, and thus not covered by equivalence? That is contrary to the patent policy that encourages an innovator to file for a patent and disclose his invention. Thus, foreseeability creates conflicts with conventional patent law ideas.
If the concepts of foreseeability and obviousness are different, however, we would be inserting new complexity into what is already an amorphous and vague area of the law. That would not be a step forward.
*1064Accordingly, while the idea is an interesting one, I have serious doubts that foreseeability is the answer.