Court Opinion

ID: 9487544
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 12:19:51.25271+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:52:20.823415
License: Public Domain

*1233LOURIE, Circuit Judge,
concurring-in-part and dissenting-in-part.
I concur in the majority's decision with respect to the ’232, ’838, ’130, ’208, and ’538 patents, and join the opinion except for the following:
I do not agree that reduction to practice is corroboration of conception and that the completeness of a conception is affected by subsequent experimental success or failure. These statements confuse the idea of conception with both corroboration and reduction to practice. A conception must be judged as to its completeness in relation to the invention being claimed. It must also be corroborated by evidence independent of the inventor. If subsequent experimentation shows that an invention that was only conceived does not work, that fact does not vitiate the earlier conception. A conception not later reduced to practice may have little significance, but it is important that we not confuse concepts. The conception was still a conception. It is of course possible for an invention to be reduced to practice constructively, i.e., by filing a patent application, rather than actually, by doing the work, in which case the reduction to practice clearly says nothing about the completeness of the conception. Moreover, what matters, in addition to the completeness of a conception, is its date. Corroboration must be of the date of the conception. If the only “corroboration” of the conception is its reduction to practice, corroboration has not occurred concerning the alleged date of conception. Finally on this point, reduction to practice by the inventor is not corroboration because corroboration must be independent of the inventor. Corroboration is not a demonstration that the conceived invention works; it is eviden-tiary proof that the mental act of invention occurred on a certain date.
I also believe that the issue of joint inven-torship is irrelevant here and therefore confusing. If the Burroughs Wellcome inventors had a complete conception, as we hold, then the NIH scientists were not inventors because the invention had already been made, not because of any shortcomings in their inventive contributions. Thus, there is no need to discuss joint inventorship at all.
I respectfully dissent from the vacating of the court’s judgment concerning the ’750 patent. I believe that the method of the ’750 patent is an inherent, inevitable result of the practice of the other method patents claiming treatment of HIV or AIDS. It seems to be the (or a) mechanism by which the other methods find their use.
Even if it is true that the first verification or articulation of the increase in the T-eell count occurred in the hands of NIH scientists, this finding inures to the benefit of those who conceived the method of treatment that led to it. The method of the ’750 patent is merely a refined definition of the method of the ’232 patent, which issued from the original application. The ’130 and ’208 patents, which also came from applications later filed with the ’750 and the composition patents, are also modifications of the original filing. It is common practice for applicants to claim all aspects of their invention and that is what appears to have happened here. An inventor is entitled to the inherent benefits that flow from his or her invention. It is improper to split the inventorship of what is one invention merely because the means by which it was achieved was later verified by scientists acting pursuant to the original con-ceivers.
The PTO of course issued these patents. During its examination, it determined that the ’750 method was obvious over the ’232 method. Given a terminal disclaimer, this led to the grant of the patent. More than being obvious, however, the method was inherent in the ’232 method and therefore lacking in novelty. See 35 U.S.C. § 102 (1988). If, as I believe, the ’750 invention does lack novelty over the other patents, its validity may be in question on the ground of double patenting because a terminal disclaimer is not effective to cure a double patenting problem when the inventions are the same. As long as the inventive entities are also the same, however, it doesn’t really matter.
Even assuming that the ’750 method is a separate invention, the majority concedes that evidence supports an inference that the Burroughs Wellcome inventors alone conceived the method. The majority goes off *1234the track, however, in relying on Novop-harm’s offer of evidence that one would not have expected the T-cell count to rise. This is irrelevant if Burroughs Welleome’s inventors had the conception, because the opinion earlier correctly holds that a reasonable expectation of success is not necessary to a conception.
The majority here is inviting the trial court on remand and motion, see 35 U.S.C. § 256 (1988), to partially split the inventorship, and presumably also the ownership, of this related collection of patents claiming the physical act of “treating” and the result which the treatment accomplishes. This makes no sense. It amounts to deciding that treating a person in pain with aspirin is one invention and invoking the pain-relieving mechanism by means of that treatment is another. One cannot apparently treat HIV-infected humans with AZT without also increasing the level of T-lymphocytes. The panel is thus inconsistent in upholding the conclusion of the trial court that Burroughs Welleome’s scientists alone conceived the invention of using AZT to treat HIV infection, but then failing to arrive at the same conclusion regarding a patent claiming one of the sequelae of that use.
The real result of the majority’s vacating the court’s decision on the ’750 patent is that, while it may believe that it is affirming the decision on the other patents, it may in practical effect be destroying Burroughs Well-come’s exclusivity for its invention and creating a whole new set of questions. If the trial court joins the NIH inventors, and NIH has licensed the patent to companies intending to sell AZT, will those companies infringe the ’232 and other patents? Is the terminal disclaimer still valid, lacking the consent of one of the assignees? Without a valid terminal disclaimer, is the ’750 patent valid? While these questions are not before us, exploring them illustrates the strange consequences of the majority’s decision. On the other hand, if the trial court confirms its finding that the T-lymphocyte “invention” was essentially the same invention and inured to the benefit of Burroughs Wellcome, the remand will have been superfluous. Useless and inefficient litigation and burdening of the courts will have resulted.
The trial court’s decision should be affirmed across the board because it correctly found that the Burroughs Wellcome inventors solely conceived and are entitled to the inventive benefit of all the claimed inventions.