Court Opinion

ID: 9419615
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:50:27.475322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:19.404956
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Rutledge,
dissenting.
I would affirm the judgment. But I do not reach the interesting and important questions debated by the Court’s opinion and my dissenting brethren. They are of such a character that, in my opinion, they should not be determined in the absence of a record presenting facts and issues making this necessary. In this case the facts do not so clearly present the issues of “fencing” and “blocking” that decision upon them is required or appropriate.
Those issues were not raised or considered until the case reached the Court of Appeals. Evidence concerning intent to suppress was not received in the District Court and *385petitioner is entitled to its day in court upon that question, unless it has conceded it. The record, as this Court’s opinion indicates, is not clear that the concession has been made with the effect of admitting that petitioner had no intention to exploit the patent. If, as the trial court found, the machine without the splitting knife would not “produce any useful result,” this fact together with the assertion of the claims relating to the full combination, or with it and the concessions apparently made in the Court of Appeals, might be sufficient to sustain that court’s conclusion that the only purpose of the alleged invention was to “fence” or “block.” But the Court of Appeals expressly rejected the trial court’s finding in this respect; and a showing of motion pictures here, such as took place in the Court of Appeals, appeared to demonstrate conclusively that the machine not only works without the cutting knife, but produces a highly useful result if the pears are split before being placed in the machine for bobbing, peeling and coring. Whatever foundation might have been found, therefore, to support the conclusion of intent to fence or block, in the machine’s lack of capacity to produce any useful result, disappears from the case. .
The record, however, discloses another ground which was considered in the Patent Office and the District Court, wholly sufficient to dispose of the case and requiring affirmance of the judgment. This was that the claims in issue are too broad to cover the invention. No one of the claims specifies or indicates that the pears must be pre-split in order for the invention to be used or to produce a useful result. With commendable candor, counsel conceded this in the argument here, and indeed the claims on their face require the concession. Patents are not to be granted upon claims which do not accurately describe the invention and all- of its essential features. These claims are stated in language broad enough to include whole *386pears. Admittedly the machine will not work, without the knife, as to them. In my judgment therefore the claims are too broad. The Patent Office and the District Court so found. The question is open and was presented in the Court of Appeals and here. Accordingly I would affirm the judgment.