Court Opinion

ID: 9445742
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:37:19.043865+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:23.634122
License: Public Domain

On Motions for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
Both parties have submitted motions for rehearing. The plaintiffs contend that the Court’s opinion, in holding the improvement patent No. 2,316,832 invalid over the basic patent No. 2,210,846, ignored the rule as to co-pending patents.
Ordinarily, a patent, to be valid over the prior art, must be an advance over the whole disclosure contained in the specifications or claims of a prior patent. This rule will normally apply even where the applicant is the same person to whom a prior patent was issued, because whatever is disclosed but not claimed by the former patent will be considered as abandoned to the public. However, where the applicant files a second application while the earlier one is still pending ir. the Patent Office, and the first patent contains disclosures not embodied in the claims, he is not barred from embodying the unclaimed disclosures in the later application. In such case, because the first application has still not been made public when the second is filed, the unclaimed disclosures of the first patent are not deemed an abandonment preventing their being claimed in the second. Traitel Marble Co. v. U. T. Hungerford Brass & Copper Co., 2 Cir., 22 F.2d 259, 261.
To be patentable, however, the claims of the second patent must be for a different invention than that claimed in the first patent. Traitel Marble Co. v. U. T. Hungerford Brass & Copper Co., supra; Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Gibbs, 4 Cir., 27 F.2d 466; Jordan v. Hemphill Co., 4 Cir., 180 F.2d 457; Standard Brands v. Federal Yeast Corp., D.C.Md., 38 F.2d 314 (Soper, J.); Weatherhead Co. v. Drillmaster Supply Co., 7 Cir., 227 F.2d 98; Danbury & Bethel Fur Co. v. American Hatters, 2 Cir., 54 F.2d 344; Sturtevant Co. v. Massachusetts Hair & Felt Co., 1 Cir., 122 F.2d 900; In re Sherman, 121 F.2d 527, 28 C.C.P.A., Patents, 1329. If the second application merely claims the same invention on which the applicant has already been awarded a patent, he will, of course, not be permitted, by double patenting, to extend his monopoly beyond seventeen years. The policy of the law is to protect the inventor by granting him a monopoly for a limited term, but upon its expiration the public is entitled to practice his invention in all its modifications and variations. There is certainly no reason to grant him a monopoly for an extended period upon a variant of his patent which would be obvious to one skilled in the art.
The Traitel case, supra, in which the opinion was by Judge Learned Hand, is sometimes cited for th „ proposition that the claim of the second patent need not be inventive at all, if the application is filed while the applicant has a pending prior application. But a careful reading of that opinion, as well as the other cases cited above, shows that what Judge Hand meant and said was that the claim of the second application need not be a patentable advance over the disclosures of the specifications (as distinct from the claims) of the first application. All agree that a patentee cannot reclaim what has already been claimed and patented by him.
Neither the narrowing of the inlet end of the aerator, nor the addition of “a foraminous member” makes the second patent a separate invention. Even disregarding the specifications and looking solely at the claims of the two patents, it is plain that the two involve the same patentable invention. The claim of the *727second patent speaks of “a foraminous member upstream the apertured diaphragm,” while the claim of the first patent mentions only the upstream “diaphragm” ; but the terms mean the same thing. It is true that in the claims of the first patent, only one such diaphragm is prescribed, while the claim of the second is for more than one such member; but there is no significant difference between the claims of the two patents.
Changing some of the functioning parts of a device may constitute an independent invention, but merely adding more of the same thing is not ordinarily a separate invention. For example, in the Gibbs case, supra, of the five major functioning parts of the second patent, only two had appeared in the claims of the earlier patent, and what the court considered the heart of the second patent was not claimed in the first. By contrast, in our case, nothing new or different is claimed in the second patent that was not in the claims of the first.
Defendant’s Motion
Defendant’s motion for rehearing alleges error in the opinion with regard to the discussion of Figure 8 in the basic patent No. 2,210,846. We held that the claims do not read on Figure 8. The defendant’s petition for rehearing says that the plaintiff has admitted that his claims operate, like Figure 8, on the Venturi principle. While this is true, it does not follow that the claims read on Figure 8, because although they utilize the Venturi principle, they do not operate on that principle alone. Figure 8 embodies the Venturi principle only, and nothing more; it provides merely for a pipe, with a fluid flowing through it, drawing to itself the fluid from another converging pipe. The claims, however, which relate not to Figure 8 but to the other figures, are for a device designed to draw air to the pipe containing water, and to break up the water, mix it with air, and achieve aerated water.
Both motions for rehearing will be
Denied