Court Opinion

ID: 9442312
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:43:45.172169+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:03.638662
License: Public Domain

MARTIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I am unable to find invention in the patent claims in suit. It seems to me that the combination of the admittedly old elements as described in the claims does not rise to the dignity of invention, and that the findings of fact of the district court are clearly erroneous. Quite apparently Turn-ham derived the idea underlying his patent from a different field by utilizing a commonly known and long existent art, that of racking pool balls upon a pool table. In effect, he merely opened up the apex of an ordinary pool ball rack so that the legs of the triangle became parallel to each other and perpendicular to the base. The opened rack was then hand-pushed along an elongated table. The pushing element was not automatic, or even mechanical.
The result achieved ,by this simple method undoubtedly was utilitarian when ap*640plied to self-serve grocery stores, for merchandise could be pushed along faster and the purchaser better served. But that, to my thinking, does not constitute Turn-ham’s combination of old elements inventive to the degree that a patent monopoly should be granted him.
In Williams Mfg. Co. v. United Shoe Mach. Corporation, 6 Cir., 121 F.2d 273 [affirmed by the Supreme Court, 316 U.S. 364, 62 S.Ct. 1179, 86 L.Ed. 1537], in which this dissenter concurred, the heel seat last-er used in manufacturing shoes was highly complicated and the improvements held valid required more ingenuity to accomplish than the mere work of a mechanic skilled in the art. I think the same may be said of the patent relating to a clutch used in single-plate clutches for motor vehicles held valid in Goodwin v. Borg-Warner Corporation, 6 Cir., 157 F.2d 267, in which the present dissenter concurred in the opinion of Judge Allen.
In Sinclair & Carroll Co. v. Interchemical Corporation, 325 U.S. 327, 330, 65 S.Ct. 1143, 1145, 89 L.Ed. 1644, the Supreme Court, in holding a patent invalid, said: “A long line of cases had held it to be an essential requirement for the validity of a patent that the subject-matter display ‘invention’, ‘more ingenuity * * * than the work of a mechanic skilled in the art.’ [Citing cases.]”
Earlier, in Cuno Engineering Corp. v. Automatic Devices Corporation, 314 U.S. 84, 90, 62 S.Ct. 37, 40, 86 L.Ed. 58, the highest court stated: “We may concede that the functions performed by Mead’s combination were new and useful. But that does not necessarily make the device patentable. Under the statute, 35 U.S.C., § 31, 35 U.S.C.A. § 31, R.S. § 4886, the device must not only 'be ‘new and useful’, it must also be an ‘invention’ or ‘discovery’. Thompson v. Boisselier, 114 U.S. 1, 11, 5 S.Ct. 1042, 1047, 29 L.Ed. 76. Since Hotch-kiss v. Greenwood & Co., 11 How. 248, 267, 13 L.Ed. 683, decided in 1851, it has been recognized that if an improvement is to obtain the privileged position of a patent more ingenuity must be involved than the work of a mechanic skilled in the art. [Citing cases.]” This court has said that not every improvement necessarily denotes invention and “the adoption of a well-known mechanical expedient is within the expected skill of the art.” Shaler Co. v. Rite-Way Products, 6 Cir., 107 F.2d 82, 83.
In the old case of Atlantic Works v. Brady, 107 U.S. 192, 200, 2 S.Ct. 225, 231, 27 L.Ed. 438, Mr. Justice Bradley declared for the unanimous Supreme Court that to “grant to a single party a monopoly of every slight advance made, except where the exercise of invention, somewhat above ordinary mechanical or engineering skill, is distinctly shown, is unjust in principle' and injurious in its consequences.”
Applying these principles, I am unable to see that invention inheres in the patent claims 'in suit. Accordingly, I think that the judgment of the district court, being grounded upon clearly erroneous findings, should be reversed.