Court Opinion

ID: 9651314
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:13:26.087323+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:31.722317
License: Public Domain

BLAND, Associate Judge
(dissenting in part).
In the next to the last paragraph of the majority opinion is the following sentence: “In that case we held that when a claim to a compound had been allowed, a claim to an insecticidal and fungicidal composition having that compound as an active ingredient was not patentable.”
My views as to when a use claim for a patented article or an old article should be allowed are expressed in my concurring opinion in In re Migrdichian, 156 F.2d 250, 33 C.C.P.A., Patents, 1224. I took the same position with respect to the Thuau case, 135 F.2d 344, 347, 30 C.C.P.A., Patents, 979, in In re Haller, 161 F.2d 280, 34 C.C.P.A., Patents, -.
In the instant case the inventor invented a new compound which may have many uses of great value other than as an insecticide and fungicide. He also dis*483covered that on plant life it was especially useful. Here he has made two related inventions and he should be allowed claims to the article and to its use if such use is new, unobvious and useful. ' The public is entitled to his teachings as to use and he is entitled to protection on his discovery as to use.
The particular part of the Thuau case [135 F.2d 344] which I have urged my associates to modify reads as follows: “The doctrine is so familiar as not to require citation of authority that a patentee is entitled to every use of which his invention is susceptible, whether such use be known or unknown to him. Likewise, with regard to an unpatentable article or substance long in use, any member of the public has the right to every use of which the article or substance is susceptible so long as it is unchanged, in any way, regardless of whether or not such uses were known prior to his own use.” [Italics mine.]
The discovery that sulfur, a very old, unpatented article, was useful in the vulcanization of rubber resulted in a valid patent, and by the same token the discovery that an old article produces new, useful and unobvious results as a fumigant or as a disinfectant may be inventive. The same is true as regards a patented article if the new use claimed is not an obvious one.