Court Opinion

ID: 9493748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:18:13.089399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:01.041520
License: Public Domain

BRYSON, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the court that the doctrine of equivalents is inapplicable in this case, and I therefore concur in the court’s decision to affirm the district court’s grant of judgment of non-infringement of the '849 reissue patent. I dissent, however, from the court’s decision to reverse the district court’s judgment with respect to the two state law tort claims, for essentially the same reasons set forth in my dissenting opinion when this case was first before the court. See Litton Sys., Inc. v. Honeywell, Inc., 87 F.3d 1559, 1581-84, 39 USPQ2d 1321, 1337-39 (Bryson, J., dissenting). I would affirm the district court in all respects.
Litton’s claim of intentional interference with contractual relations is based on contracts between Litton and Ojai Research, Inc., a company owned by Anthony Louderback, a former Litton employee and one of the inventors of the '958 patent. In 1981, Ojai and Litton executed two agreements governing their relationship and Louderback’s use of the '958 patent process. The first agreement, the “Consulting Services Contract,” was in effect between 1981 and 1983. The other agreement, the “Technical Assistance and License Agreement” (License Agreement), which had a 15 year duration, prohibited Louderback from using the patented process to make ring laser gyroscope mirrors for anyone but Litton.
Because the Consulting Services Contract expired in February 1983, at least one year before Honeywell contacted Louderback to obtain mirrors, the only agreement that is at issue here is the License Agreement. The License Agreement identifies the Consulting Services Contract as a separate agreement and does not purport to extend the terms of the Consulting Services Contract past February 1983. The district court noted that the only conduct by Louderback that Litton asserted as breaching the License Agreement was Louderback’s alleged infringement of the reissue patent and his use of the sliding-target mechanism to make mirrors for Honeywell in 1985. Because the district court properly concluded that no infringement occurred, any breach of the License Agreement must be based on Louderback’s use of the sliding-target mechanism.
Use of the sliding-target mechanism did not breach the License Agreement. It is not among the specifically enumerated items of “Technical Information” that *1382Schedule B of the agreement identifies as proprietary to Litton, and it was not shown to be a design change based on protected information that would constitute a “Modification and Improvement” under the agreement. The License Agreement makes clear that it does not reach “completely new or different designs.”
There is also no evidence that the sliding-target mechanism became Litton’s property pursuant to the Consulting Services Contract. The Consulting Services Contract provides that “Litton shall have all rights ... in all inventions, developments, and discoveries (whether or not patented) which Consultant may conceive or make ... during any work by Consultant for Litton.” Both Litton and Loud-erback, however, recognized that even during the two-year consulting period Louderback would be doing independent work, and the Consulting Services Contract does not reach developments made by Louderback working independently. Litton did not prove that the sliding-target mechanism was developed during any work for Litton. Louderback testified that he regarded the sliding-target mechanism as his own property, and that he maintained it separately from the Litton process that he operated under license from Litton. Moreover, the mechanism had been previously disclosed in a 1977 patent and was therefore publicly known.
Litton also contends that Louderback breached his contractual obligations when he failed to disclose certain improvements in the mirror-making process to Litton. The record, however, contains no evidence that Honeywell induced Louderback not to disclose the information in question to Litton. Rather, the record suggests only that Louderback did not disclose that information to Litton because he believed it to be his own trade secret.
Litton’s second tort claim, interference with prospective economic advantage, fails because the record does not contain substantial evidence that Honeywell used “wrongful means,” as is required by that tort. Both the district court and this court in the first appeal determined that the alleged wrongful means were either an act of infringement or an inducement to breach Louderback’s contractual obligations to Litton. See 87 F.3d at 1575, 39 USPQ2d at 1332. We have now held that no infringement occurred and, as explained above, the record fails to show that there was any inducement to breach. The “interference” claim is therefore unsupported by the evidence at trial.
Aside from the issue of wrongful means, the interference tort also requires a showing that Honeywell intentionally acted to disrupt Litton’s business relationship with Louderback. This court in the first Litton case found evidence of that conduct only in the acts of infringement and intentional interference with contractual relations between Louderback and Litton. See 87 F.3d at 1575, 39 USPQ2d at 1331. As neither of those acts has been proved, the interference tort fails on that basis as well.
Accordingly, the district court was correct in entering judgment as a matter of law on the two state tort claims; I therefore dissent from this court’s decision to reverse that portion of the district court’s judgment.