Court Opinion

ID: 9644396
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 20:55:00.013863+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:05:22.406173
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I do not think that “dowels” are one of the elements of claims 27, 28 or 37. They are specifically made such in claims 4, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10, and we should not import them into the general language used in the claims in suit. At least it is clear that they are not part of claim 37. Therefore unlike my brothers, I fail to see any defense on the score of non-infringement. The only possible anticipations are Taylor, No. 1,438,507 and Sutton, No. 1,341,395, both of which showed “integral abutments.” Although in each the defects in mounting could have been readily amended, neverthless under well settled law, neither as it stood was an anticipation, for each was utterly unworkable; it would have gone to pieces upon the first' long drive. Moreover, it actually did nothing to advance the art; it was still-born.
The only question, so far as I can see, is whether the futile suggestion of these patents should defeat Pennington’s contribution — a contribution which it is not an exaggeration to call revolutionary, for his absorber has substantially superseded all others. I cannot answer such a question by generalities, though one may find apt ones to fit either side of every patent suit. When we are to measure the degree of originality necessary to any advance in the arts, I know of no other rod than history. Had Pennington filed his application soon after Taylor and Sutton, I should probably not have thought that he had invented anything; the appearance in quick succession of several embodiments of the same idea is a good indication that it was already in bud and was sure shortly to come to flower. But that was not the case here. Sutton appeared in May, 1920, Taylor in December, 1922. They were open to the art; but, as I have said, the art utterly ignored them. It- is most unlikely that this was because of the bad designing if the disclosure had been recognized as the solution which it proved to be; and certainly we are justified in supposing that the defendant must have known of them for it is the largest maker of absorbers in the country. Yet what did it do? Again and again it tried' in one way after another to fix separate abutments into the chamber; and again and again it failed. These were not the fumblings of a tyro, but the best skill of the leader in this particular branch of the-industry. Besides these experiments the-Patent Office was littered with other intermediate efforts, all equally unsuccessful.
It was in this situation that in November, 1928, Pennington filed his application,, nearly six years after Sutton had appeared-Even assuming that it was no more than' an adaptation of what Taylor and Suttom had disclosed, I think that it was an invention; for I know no surer mark of' originality than to pick up what others-have discarded as impracticable and useless, and make it into what all would have ■ chosen, if they had had eyes to see. It is-of course possible to look at all patents, as odious monopolies; perhaps they are;. perhaps the condition interpolated about a hundred years ago that their production must evince some exceptional talent is not-; the right protection; certain it is that our.*217■attitude towards them has greatly changed in twenty years. Yet I cannot see — until some tangible and authoritative substitute is at hand — how we can administer the existing system without recognizing as authentic evidence of high talent, the discovery of new combinations, though made of elements which have long been open to all, if they prove at length to answer a need that those thoroughly versed in the matter have been repeatedly and fruitlessly trying to fill.