Court Opinion

ID: 9478590
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:52:45.556141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:30.546480
License: Public Domain

RUTH BADER GINSBURG,
Circuit Judge, joined by Senior Circuit Judge GIBSON, concurring:
I concur in the court’s disposition of this case because Neidhart v. Neidhart S.A., 510 F.2d 760 (D.C.Cir.1975), is the controlling precedent and remains the law of this circuit until overruled by the court en banc. I write separately, however, to voice my agreement with Judge Leventhal’s interpretation of 35 U.S.C. § 293 (1982), set forth in his dissent in Neidhart. See 510 F.2d at 765-68 (Leventhal, J., dissenting).
The district court possessed subject matter jurisdiction over this case under 28 U.S. C. § 1332(a) (1982) (diversity of citizenship): *358plaintiff-appellant National Patent Development Corporation (National) is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in New York, defendant-appellee T.J. Smith & Nephew, Limited (Smith & Nephew) is an English corporation, and the amount in controversy exceeds $10,000, exclusive of interest and costs.1
Furthermore, to the extent that National’s claims relate to patents Smith & Nephew registered here, see infra note 6, due process would not have inhibited the district court’s assertion of personal jurisdiction over defendant-appellee. By registering a patent in the United States Patent Office, a party residing abroad purposefully avails itself of the benefits and protections patent registration in this country affords. See World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 297-98, 100 S.Ct. 559, 567, 62 L.Ed.2d 490 (1980); cf. Stabilisierungsfonds Fur Wein v. Kaiser Stuhl Wine Distributors Pty. Ltd., 647 F.2d 200, 203-04 & nn. 4-6 (D.C.Cir.1981).2 It is therefore fair and reasonable to require such a party to respond here3 in proceedings, whether arising under federal or state law, concerning the U.S.-registered patent.
The critical question for this court, then, is whether the long-arm statute invoked in this case, section 293, extends to a suit involving patent ownership. Were this court writing on a clean slate, I believe the answer would have to be yes. The words Congress used broadly authorize the district court to exercise adjudicatory authority over a patentee not residing in the United States in cases “respecting the patent or rights thereunder.” 35 U.S.C. § 293 (emphasis added). This unqualified language is most naturally and plausibly read to encompass a suit over patent ownership.
Despite the recognized natural meaning of the legislature’s formulation, see Neidhart, 510 F.2d at 764 n. 9; North Branch Prod., Inc. v. Fisher, 179 F.Supp. 843, 845 (D.D.C.1960), the court in Neidhart read the provision stingily, stating that “ ‘[njatural meaning’ simply will not suffice where, as here, other considerations necessitate more sophisticated interpretation.” 510 F.2d at 764 n. 9. I am unconvinced, however, of the reality of any substantial countervailing considerations. I would therefore follow “the familiar canon of statutory construction that the starting point for interpreting a statute is the language of the statute itself”; “[ajbsent a clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.” Consumer Prod. Safety Comm’n v. GTE Sylvania, Inc., 447 U.S. 102, 108, 100 S.Ct. 2051, 2056, 64 L.Ed.2d 766 (1980); accord Ford Motor Credit Co. v. Cenance, 452 U.S. 155, 158 n. 3, 101 S.Ct. 2239, 2241 n. 3, 68 L.Ed.2d 744 (1981); Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 182, 101 S.Ct. 1048, 1054, 67 L.Ed.2d 155 (1981); Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42, 100 S.Ct. 311, 314, 62 L.Ed.2d 199 (1979).4
*359Our current confined reading of section 293 had its genesis in North Branch. The district court there apparently believed that the plaintiff had invoked the section to do double duty, i.e., to satisfy, simultaneously, the requirements of subject matter and personal jurisdiction. The North Branch court’s analysis, 179 F.2d at 845, confused the two issues, instead of treating them discretely, as Judge Leventhal pointed out in his Neidhart dissent, 510 F.2d at 765-66.5 A similar confusion appears to have influenced the Neidhart majority. Reacting to the Justice Department’s suggestion that section 293 conferred both subject matter and personal jurisdiction on the district court over patent-related cases, the Neidhart majority stressed its resistance to federal court intrusion upon the domain of state courts via assertion of jurisdiction over what was, in essence, a contract dispute. 510 F.2d at 764.
When one separates subject matter jurisdiction from personal jurisdiction, however, the courts’ fears appear unjustified. Subject matter jurisdiction is in no case supplied by section 293; it must be based, ordinarily, either on diversity of the parties’ citizenship, see Neidhart, 510 F.2d at 765 (Leventhal, J., dissenting), or on a federal question, see Biker Laboratories, Inc. v. Gist-Brocades N.V., 636 F.2d 772, 779-80 (D.C.Cir.1980). Interpreting section 293 in accord with its plain meaning, then, would not allow the District Court for the District of Columbia to roam the country pilfering state court fare, because the federal court would be limited by the normal subject matter competence requirements.
In sum, this case properly belongs in federal court.6 Only misconceived precedent 7 bars the door that Congress appears to have opened. There was good cause for the door-opening: to assure United States citizens the opportunity to air in a United States court complaints against a foreign registrant regarding a United States patent and the rights flowing therefrom. Notwithstanding my reluctance to rehear freshly-decided panel opinions, see, e.g., Air Line Pilots Ass’n, Int’l v. Eastern Airlines, Inc., 863 F.2d 891, 925 (D.C.Cir.1989) (Ruth B. Ginsburg, J., concurring in denial of rehearing en banc), I am convinced that the full circuit, having had ample time for reflection and running no risk of undermining the court’s collegiality, should reverse the course set by Neidhart.

. National’s complaint was filed January 14, 1987; for civil actions filed after May 18, 1989, $50,000 replaces $10,000 in the section 1332(a) amount-in-controversy prescription. Judicial Improvements and Access to Justice Act, Pub.L. No. 100-702, § 201, 102 Stat. 4642, 4646 (1988).

. As National points out, Brief for Appellant at 2 & n. 1, Smith & Nephew has at least four times availed itself of its rights under United States patent registrations by seeking to enforce the ' patents against' infringers. See T.J. Smith & Nephew Ltd. v. Ferris Corp., No. 86 C 5461 (N.D.Ill. filed July 25, 1986); T.J. Smith & Nephew Ltd. v. Pfizer Hosp. Prods. Group, Inc., No. 85-301 (D.Del. filed May 20, 1985); T.J. Smith & Nephew Ltd. v. Consolidated Medical Equip., Inc., 645 F.Supp. 206 (N.D.N.Y.1986); T.J. Smith & Nephew Ltd. v. Parke, Davis & Co., 623 F.Supp. 808 (D.Utah 1985).

. I.e., in federal court in our nation’s capital, the place where the party has registered its patents. Cf. Riker Laboratories, Inc. v. Gist-Brocades N.V., 636 F.2d 772, 776 (D.C.Cir.1980) (District of Columbia is "situs of a United States patent”).

. Although the legislative history "do[es] not brilliantly illuminate the Congressional intent,” Riker Labs, 636 F.2d at 775-76; see also North Branch Prod., Inc. v. Fisher, 179 F.Supp. 843, 845 (D.D.C.1960), it is consistent with the statute’s broad terms. Commenting on what became section 293, the State Department observed:
The Department understands that this provision has been added for the benefit of American residents desiring to bring action against foreign owners of United States patents. At the present time American manufacturers threatened by charges of infringement of *359United States patents by persons resident abroad are especially handicapped by inability to bring suit for declaratory judgment.
Hearings on H.R. 3760 Before the Subcomm. No. 3 of the House Comm, on the Judiciary, 82d Cong., 1st Sess. 91 (1951); see abo id. at 93 (similar statement by Justice Department spokesperson). As Judge Leventhal reasoned, this statement indicates that although "American manufacturers threatened with charges of infringement are identified as being 'especially handicapped’ by present lack of service capability, ... they were not the sole beneficiaries of the legislation.” Neidhart, 510 F.2d at 767 (Lev-enthal, J., dissenting).

.While there was no federal question claim in North Branch, and diversity of citizenship was imperfectly pleaded, 179 F.2d at 845, the court did have subject matter jurisdiction: in those pre-District of Columbia Court Reorganization Act days, the district court served as a general trial court for the District of Columbia, and so had common law and equity jurisdiction much like that of a state court of general jurisdiction. See Neidhart, 510 F.2d at 767 n. 11 (Leventhal, J., dissenting).

. More specifically, only the case described in appellant’s and appellee's briefs — limited to National’s dispute with Smith & Nephew over the ownership of United States reissue patents— properly belongs in the district court. National’s complaint, which alleges that Smith & Nephew also misappropriated National’s rights in the relevant inventions by filing patent applications in Great Britain and eighteen other countries of the world, see Joint Appendix at 18-19, 24-25, would have to be trimmed so that the issues before the district court concern only the U.S. patents or rights thereunder.

. Only one circuit judge until now has squarely rejected the application of section 293 to a case that did not turn on an issue of patent law. The majority in Neidhart consisted of Circuit Judge Tamm and George L. Hart, Jr., United States District Judge for the District of Columbia, and North Branch was decided by District Judge Holtzoff.