Court Opinion

ID: 9462617
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:45:34.105073+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:40.781599
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON REHEARING
LEVENTHAL, Circuit Judge:
Plaintiffs call to our attention that the ’422 patent was not prior art as to the ’216 patent because the applications for these patents were in a state of co-penden-cy for a period of 8 days (from January 8, 1968, until January 16, 1968). The law is settled that “copending applications on which patents are granted to the same inventor must pass two tests of validity. They must constitute invention over the prior art, and they must be ‘different’ from each other in order to avoid double patenting.” Weatherhead Company v. Drillmaster Supply Co., 227 F.2d 98, 101 (7th Cir. 1955).
On the second of these inquiries, [c]o-pending applications are not prior art as to each other; but this means only that when the applications are made by the same inventor and the doctrine of double patenting applies, the later patent need not show an inventive advance over what was disclosed but not claimed in the earlier patent and when determining whether double-patenting exists, only the claims are compared and the claim of the patent must show an invention beyond the claims of the first.” 1 Deller’s Walker on Patents § 62, at 306 (2d ed. 1964). On April 21, 1976, after the judgment of this court issued, petitioner Turzillo moved to avoid double patenting difficulties by filing a terminal disclaimer for the remaining life of the ’216 patent after January 16, 1985, the expiration date of the ’422 patent.
Double patenting was not at issue in this case. The District Judge characterized the ’216 patent as “an improvement” over the ’422 patent. Our opinion makes clear that the two patents rest on different premises. What our opinion deals with is the initial inquiry as to whether the ’216 patent marked a nonobvious advance over the pertinent prior art. For this purpose, we believe there is some latitude for looking at the claims, as opposed to the unclaimed disclosures, of the ’422 patent.
However, to avoid any misunderstanding as to the relationship between the two patents, we have given reconsideration to this case without recourse to either the disclosures or claims of the ’422 patent. We relied on claim 1 of the ’422 patent as to the use of a rigid rod as a reinforcement to be anchoringly embedded in a column of ce-mentitious material.1 This reliance was un*1403necessary. The location of reinforcing members in a concrete pile is a feature of the conventional “percussion method,” as illustrated by the Newman patent — a teaching that is old in the art. With that modification, our original opinion demonstrates the lack of requisite invention in the ’216 patent.2
Plaintiffs put it that a holding of obviousness by this court can only be based upon improper hindsight reconstruction of the prior art. All we can say is that we tried to be aware of the problem and to avoid the vice. “[T]he mere existence of differences between the prior art and an invention does not establish the invention’s nonobviousness. The gap between the prior art and [plaintiffs’] system is simply not so great as to render the system nonobvious to one reasonably skilled in the art.” Dann v. Johnston, - U.S. -, -, 96 S.Ct. 1393, 1399, 47 L.Ed.2d 692, 700, 44 U.S.L.W. 4463, 4466 (1976). Ultimately, as was reinforced by the Supreme Court’s most recent patent opinion, Sakraida v. Ag Pro, Inc., - U.S. -, -, 96 S.Ct. 1532, 1536-37, 47 L.Ed.2d 784, 790-91, 44 U.S.L.W. 4477, 4480 (1976), a court must exercise its judgment on this question of law, and is not controlled by commercial success or acceptance.

. Plaintiffs’ petition points out that we misstate the teaching of the ’422 patent in suggesting that “the rod that had just been in contact with the bit was left in as reinforcement after contact with the bit had ended.” (at-of 174 U.S.App.D.C., at 1401-1402 of 532 F.2d). This was an inadvertence. We intended “drill” when we said “bit.”

. Plaintiffs’ petition states that the claims of the ’216 patent recite many limitations not considered by this court. These were not briefed or argued as demonstrating nonobvious advances.