Cornell v. Adams Engineering Company

• Decision Date: 28 October 1958
• Docket Number: No. 17031.,17031.
• Citation: 258 F.2d 874
• Parties: George W. CORNELL and W. Elder Cornell, Jr., Appellants, v. ADAMS ENGINEERING COMPANY, Inc., Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

258 F.2d 874 (1958)

George W. CORNELL and W. Elder Cornell, Jr., Appellants, v. ADAMS ENGINEERING COMPANY, Inc., Appellee.

No. 17031.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

September 16, 1958.

Rehearing Denied October 28, 1958.

J. Matthews Neale, Washington, D. C., R. D. Maxwell, Jr., L. L. Robinson, Miami, Fla., Strauch, Nolan & Neale, Washington, D. C., of counsel, for appellants.

Ralph L. Chappell, New York City, Clemen J. Ehrlich, Miami, Fla., Blackwell, Walker & Gray, Miami, Fla., and Kenyon & Kenyon, New York City, of counsel, for appellee.

Before RIVES, CAMERON and BROWN, Circuit Judges.

CAMERON, Circuit Judge.

The question presented by this appeal is whether we shall set aside as clearly erroneous the findings of fact of the court below upon which it held that the patent sued on was invalid for lack of invention. These findings of fact and conclusions of law are published in 156 F. Supp. 872. The conclusions of the trial court follow as a matter of course if its findings of fact are not clearly erroneous.

Appellants, plaintiffs below, sued appellee for infringement of their patent issued in 1955 covering threshold and door sealing construction. Appellee-defendant answered claiming that the patent was invalid and void chiefly on the ground that appellant, George W. Cornell, was not the original inventor of the patented device or combination, because the same was known to and used by others before his alleged invention or discovery; and that no invention was required to devise and perfect it in view of the state of the art existing prior thereto.

The trial court heard testimony for four days, considering dozens of drawings, cuts and publications and a number of models, all of which are before us. The court had the advantage of seeing and hearing the witnesses give their testimony and of being instructed firsthand by detailed explanations of the various exhibits. We think that its findings of fact are clearly supported by the evidence and that no good purpose will be served by an attempt to justify the detailed findings set forth in the published opinion, supra. We will content ourselves, therefore, with a few general observations on the chief questions raised in the appeal.

Appellee offered proof concerning eleven patents which it claimed constituted items of prior art, bearing dates from 1870 to 1949. Appellants devote thirteen pages of their brief to a detailed discussion of the claims of their patent in comparison with the prior art relied upon by appellee, and come up with the conclusion that fifteen claims were present in the prior art and sixteen were not present. One purpose of this detailed analysis was obviously to buttress the argument that the presumption of validity of the patent issued by the Patent Office was not diminished or destroyed by the prior patents, based upon the contention that the Patent Office did have before it the most significant prior art. Appellants quote copiously from Corpus Juris Secundum setting forth the general rules which they maintain should influence a court in considering whether a patent is invalid for lack of invention based upon combining the teachings of prior patents.

We have recently given full consideration to the presumption of validity provided by 35 U.S.C.A. § 282, and have held that, when the Patent Office has not considered important contributions to the prior art, the usual presumption of validity otherwise attaching from the issuance of the patent...