Hoge Warren Zimmermann Co. v. Nourse & Co.

• Decision Date: 22 August 1961
• Docket Number: 14214.,No. 14213,14213
• Citation: 293 F.2d 779
• Parties: HOGE WARREN ZIMMERMANN CO., Appellant, v. NOURSE & CO., and Carl C. Nourse, Appellees. NOURSE & CO., and Carl C. Nourse, Cross-Appellants, v. HOGE WARREN ZIMMERMANN CO., Cross-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

293 F.2d 779 (1961)

HOGE WARREN ZIMMERMANN CO., Appellant, v. NOURSE & CO., and Carl C. Nourse, Appellees.

NOURSE & CO., and Carl C. Nourse, Cross-Appellants, v. HOGE WARREN ZIMMERMANN CO., Cross-Appellee.

Nos. 14213, 14214.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

August 22, 1961.

John Melville, Cincinnati, Ohio (Allen & Allen and Stanley H. Foster, Cincinnati, Ohio, on the brief), for Hoge Warren Zimmermann Co.

J. Warren Kinney, Jr., Cincinnati, Ohio (Edward J. Utz, Cincinnati, Ohio, on the brief), for Nourse.

Before MILLER, Chief Judge, WEICK, Circuit Judge and THORNTON, District Judge.

THORNTON, District Judge.

This was an action brought for the infringement of Patent No. 2,625,381 entitled "Process of Continuously Preparing a Gypsum Slurry" which was issued to Hoge and Zimmermann on January 13, 1953. The defendants pleaded invalidity and noninfringement as defenses. The parties to this controversy are in the business of placing gypsum on roof decks. On February 19, 1960 the District Court filed findings of fact and conclusions of law and rendered its judgment that the plaintiff had failed to sustain the burden of proof of its complaint, and that the defendants were entitled to judgment with their costs; that the defendants sustained their burden of proof on their defense of invalidity of the patent in suit; but that the defendants failed to sustain their burden of proof on their counterclaim seeking attorney fees and damages. Both sides have appealed from the District Court's denial of their respective claims as outlined above. We will first consider the appeal of the plaintiff-appellant, No. 14213, wherein the appellant presents 20 questions for review by this Court, the first 13 of which relate to the validity of the patent in suit, the next 4 to the "scope" of the patent, and the last 3 to "infringement." Appellant claims to have made a notable contribution to the art, and contends that the defendants should not be permitted to reap benefits therefrom free of liability. The defendants contend that they have established that the patent in suit is invalid because

(1) it relates to a wholly inoperative and unattainable condition;

(2) it attempts to define something which is not disclosed in the earlier (1948) application of which the later (1950) application is allegedly a "continuation-in-part"; and

(3) there was a public use three and one-half years before the filing of the present (1950) application.

"We are bound in patent cases by fact findings of the trial court which are not clearly wrong." National Latex Products v. Sun Rubber Co., 6 Cir., 1959, 274 F.2d 224, 238. In applying this rule, in McAllister v. United States, 1954, 348 U.S. 19, 20, 75 S.Ct. 6, 8, 99 L.Ed. 20, the Supreme Court stated as follows:

"A finding is clearly erroneous when `although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed,\' * *"

In applying this test to the findings of fact of the District Court, we have made some observations which will be discussed below.

Discussion.

At the outset, the appellees present a Counter-Statement of Facts, giving as their reason that "the Statement of Facts presented in appellant's brief is misleading, incomplete, argumentative, in certain instances unsupported by the record, and in other instances clearly erroneous." From our examination of the two volumes of the Joint Appendix, and of the brief and reply brief of the appellant we are impressed that appellees were not without good reason in having submitted their Counter-Statement of Facts.

Patent No. 2,538,891 was issued to the appellant on January 23, 1951 and contained apparatus claims only; this patent is not in suit. Patent No. 2,625,381 was issued on January 13, 1953 and contains process claims only; this is the only patent here in suit, and typical of the claims in suit is claim 2, which is as follows:

"A process for continuously preparing a gypsum slurry for use, which includes the steps of metering dry calcined gypsum, metering water, bringing said metered gypsum and water into intimate contact and continuously and violently agitating them to form a slurry having a creamy, uniform texture, and to entrain air therein, passing said slurry promptly into a closed system, and subjecting said slurry, continuously throughout said closed system, to a mixing action for a period of time which closely approaches but does not exceed the critical conversion point of the slurry, and discharging said slurry from said closed system for immediate use." Ptf.\'s Exhibit 38, Joint Appendix, p. 711a.

The brief of the appellant, at page 12, is authority for the following concession:

"The chief issue in this appeal is whether or not the process claims of the patent in suit are fully supported by the disclosures of the parent application of which it is a continuation-in-part. If the claims in suit are supported by the disclosures of the parent application, they are then entitled to the date of the first or parent application and are not barred by any public use. If, however, the claims are not entitled to the disclosures of the first or parent application, then they would be entitled only to the date of the second application, in which case they would be defeated by a prior public use."

As support for appellant's contention that the claims in suit were supported by the disclosures of the parent application, and thus entitled to the date of the first or parent application and not barred by public use, appellant presented the testimony of Mr. Ralph Grim as an expert. In appellant's brief appellant describes Mr. Grim variously as follows:

"A gypsum expert"

"The man `skilled in the art\'"

"This is confirmed by the testimony of a true gypsum expert who was familiar with both patents"

"His¹ testimony, therefore, as to the presence or absence of a basis in the parent case for the limitations in question in the patent in suit cannot have the dignity or persuasiveness which must be accorded to the testimony of Dr. Grim who was shown to be the top expert in the United States in the filed in question."

In his testimony Mr. Grim identified himself as an educator of many years standing and, at the time of the trial, as research professor of Geology at the University of Illinois, with a special field of knowledge in the investigation of the occurrence and the composition and the atomic structure of minerals; he also testified that he had been retained as an expert in the "field of gypsum" on two occasions, by the United States Gypsum Company and in the instant case. When asked by counsel for the appellant "Professor Grim, you have read the '891 patent and understand it and you have read the '381 patent and understand it" he replied "I have read them and I think I understand them." On cross-examination Mr. Grim admitted that he had appeared in patent cases but that he did not claim to be a patent expert and, in addition, that he had not studied the proceedings involved in this litigation before the Patent Office. (Gypsum is in the mineral field. We are concerned here with patent litigation.)

The District Court found as a fact that the plaintiff's patent expert was not only wholly unfamiliar with the proceedings before the Patent Office during the prosecution of the patent application which matured into patent No. 2,538,891 or patent No. 2,625,381, but that he frankly admitted that he did not claim to be a patent expert. In contrast to the foregoing, Mr. Kingsland testified that he had studied patent No. 2,538,891 and that he had also made a study of patent No. 2,625,381 and of the file wrappers of each. From this study he gave a lengthy and detailed account of what this examination and study meant to him as a person skilled in patent law and patent procedure. He concluded that a public use and sale of a process in November 1947 would be a statutory bar to the validity of each of the seven claims of the method patent here in suit (No. 2,625,381). He based this conclusion upon a summary of all of his investigation and testimony which was to the effect that all seven claims of the method patent here in suit contain limitations which are not disclosed in the earlier parent application. Mr. Kingsland testified that the 1948 patent application made no reference to any further processing after the initial mixing in the mixer; that the 1948 application made no reference to a critical conversion point nor that there is anything in the 1948 application that would give a definition for the term "critical time"; nor was there anything in the 1948 application with reference to mixing in the hose; nor was there any basis in the 1948 application for the expression "that after the prepared gypsum slurry has passed into a closed system that it is further treated for a period of time which closely approaches but does not exceed the critical conversion point of the slurry." There is additional testimony from witnesses from both sides of the litigation, and from exhibits, to the effect that the claims of the patent in suit are not supported by disclosures of the parent application (No. 2,538,891). The patent in suit, No. 2,625,381, issued in 1953 on a patent application filed October 18, 1950. In the first paragraph of this patent it is referred to as "a continuation-in-part of our copending application, Serial No. 9,435, filed February 19, 1948, now Patent No. 2,538,891, issued January 23, 1951." This 1948 application, as filed, contained both apparatus and process claims, and of these process claims No. 6 was considered by the inventors Hoge and Zimmermann as a basic process claim and reads as follows:

"6. A continuous process of laying gypsum concrete on a previously prepared roof deck form or the like, which

...