Court Opinion

ID: 9497330
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:48:53.220967+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:08.131636
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The toothbrush art is not analogous to the hair brush art. Bigio’s patent application is directed to a hair brush, and his claims are limited to a hair brush. A brush for hair has no more relation to a brush for teeth than does hair resemble teeth.
The mode and mechanics of brushing teeth cannot reasonably be viewed as analogous to the mode and mechanics of brushing hair. To state the obvious: teeth require a brush that penetrates around the edges of relatively large and hard substrates, a brush that administers a soapy abrasive, a brush that works in the up-and-down and circular motion needed to scrub teeth; a brush for hair must serve entirely different shapes and textures and purposes. Neither the PTO nor my colleagues on this panel points to any ground on which a person seeking to design an improved hairbrush would deem the toothbrush art to be a source of usable technology, and thus “analogous,” whereby that source is relevant to a determination of obviousness. See In re GPAC Inc., 57 F.3d 1573, 1578 (Fed.Cir.1995) (analogous art is a field of technology whose selection and adaptation would be suggested or motivated or taught, by sources in the prior art, as relevant to the problem facing this inventor).
The panel majority affirms the Board’s finding that the Bigio claims are not limited to a brush for the hair of one’s head, but includes other bodily hair. Whether or not that is a supportable view of Bigio’s claims is irrelevant, for teeth are not bodily hair. Also, the specification and claims are explicit that this is a brush for the hair of the head. See Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. v. Andrx Pharms., Inc., 344 F.3d 1226, 1229 (Fed.Cir.2003) (“In determining the meaning and scope of patent claims, the primary sources are the specification and the prosecution history”).
*1328The panel majority’s inapt determination that limiting “hair brush” to “a brush for brushing hair” involves an inappropriate importation of limitations from the specification is irrelevant to the ground of rejection on which the Board and the panel majority rely. This is not a case of application of the rule that permits the PTO to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation during examination, as discussed in, e.g., Burlington Indus., Inc. v. Quigg, 822 F.2d 1581, 1583 (Fed.Cir.1987). Whether or not “the term [hair brush] may reasonably encompass not only scalp hah* brushes but also facial hair brushes,” as the majority finds, does not make the leap from facial hair to teeth and thereby render the brushing of teeth analogous to the brushing of hair.1 The purpose of the “broadest reasonable interpretation” protocol is to permit the applicant to add precision to vague or deficient claims while they are subject to amendment; the protocol does not convert remote fields of technology into “analogous art.”
The scope of the claims sought by Bigio is fully commensurate with the specification; Bigio is not seeking a broader scope than that authorized by statute whereby the claims must “particularly point out and distinctly claim [what] the applicant regards as his invention.” 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 2. Toothbrushes are not analogous to hair brushes and the record is devoid of suggestion of any substantive relationship between them. From my colleagues’ contrary holding, I must, respectfully, dissent.

. The majority states that “Bigio does not dispute that the combination of these three toothbrush references would render his invention obvious...." That is an inaccurate statement of Bigio’s position. Bigio stresses that the “unique and distinct functions [set forth in the claims] are radically different than the toothbrush technology identified by the PTO examiner." Discussing the features of the claimed hairbrush, Bigio states that "none of these features are shown, taught or suggested by the toothbrush prior art.’’ These are not concessions of obviousness.