Special Equipment Company v. Coe/Opinion of the Court

by Harlan F. Stone

United States Supreme Court

324 U.S. 370

Special Equipment Company  v.  Coe

 Argued: March 2-5, 1945. --- Decided: March 26, 1945

This is a suit in equity, brought in the District Court of the District of Columbia, under R.S. § 4915, 35 U.S.C.A. § 63, to compel respondent, the Commissioner of Patents, to issue a patent upon an application for a subcombination of the elements of a machine for which the inventor had previously filed a patent application. The district court gave judgment for respondent. The Court of Appeals for the District affirmed, 144 F.2d 497, 498, and we granted certiorari, 323 U.S. 697, 65 S.Ct. 120. The question is whether the Court of Appeals correctly rested its decision upon the ground that petitioner did not intend to make or use the invention and that the purpose of seeking the patent was to exploit and protect the combination invention embodied in the complete machine, of which the subcombination is a part.

Ewald, the plaintiff in the district court in whose stead petitioner, his assignee, was later substituted as a party, made application for a patent on a 'fruit-treating apparatus' embracing the combination embodied in his complete machine. Certain claims of his application were allowed October 27, 1938, but a patent has not yet issued. The following year he made a renewed application for the subcombination, with which the present suit is concerned. The specifications of the original application disclosed mechanisms for automatically performing the successive operations of bobbing (cutting off the stems), splitting, paring, and coring pears, in preparation for canning or other processing.

The original application specified and claimed an apparatus consisting of two spaced, horizontally mounted turrets or turn tables, combined with means for continuously, but intermittently, rotating both in the same direction. Fixed upon, and rotatable with the table of the first turret, are a plurality of pear receiving and clamping means, spaced upon the upper surface of the turn table, adapted to receive and clamp either a pre-split or a whole pear. At the first intermittent stop a swinging knife shears off (bobs) the stem of the fruit, which extends beyond the clamps. At the next intermittent stop, overhead traveling jaws or clamps grasp the fruit concurrently with its release from the first clamp and carry the fruit longitudinally to a point over the second turn table.

As the pear is thus carried from the first turret to a position over the second, it is split by a fixed vertically positioned knife straddled by the overhead traveling clamps. As the clamps force the pear against and past the knife, it cleaves the pear into substantially equal half sections. The pear sections are then automatically, successively deposited in spaced cups fixed on the second revolving turn table. At the next stop of that turn table the pear section resting in its cup is peeled by an automatically operated paring knife. At the next successive stop the core is removed from the pear section by an automatically operated coring device. After completing the coring, the mechanism automatically separates the pear section from the core and the peeling and discharges them and the per section into appropriate receptacles.

In the operation of the machine whole or split pears may be fed by hand to the holding and clamping devices on the first turret where the pears are bodded. The whole pear is then split as it is carried by the overhanging jaws from the first turret to the second. The peeling and coring of both pre-split and whole pears are then carried through by the operation of the second turret.

The patent application for the complete machine discloses a highly ingenius device, which is said to have achieved a great advance in the art by increasing the speed and skill with which pears are prepared for canning, and to result in a great saving of manpower. The renewed application for the subcombination specifies and claims the apparatus which we have described but without the splitting knife. In the operation of the device thus claimed the pears are pre-split by hand. The split sections are placed face to face in the receiving and clamping means upon the first turn table, after which the operation, except the splitting by the splitting knife, proceeds in exactly the same way and accomplishes the same result as when the splitting knife is present.

Additional claims, which are those sued on, covering all the elements of the combination except the splitting knife, were duly presented to the Patent Office. There they were rejected as incomplete, broader than the invention disclosed by the petitioner in his application, and misleading, and as covering constructions not contemplated by petitioner's application. Respondent Commissioner, alleging no prior art against the allowance of the claims, set up these objections in his answer in the district court as the sole grounds of defense to the suit. The district court sustained the Commissioner on the grounds assigned by him for rejection of the claims, and for the further reason that the subcombination claims did not 'combine to produce any sueful result'.

The Court of Appeals, after observing the operation of petitioner's subcombination without the cutting knife, as shown by moving pictures, concluded that the device was far more useful in its operation than the old method of preparing fruit by hand, and, without deciding the point, added that it was plausible to say 'that two distinct inventions are disclosed in the application'.

Without further examination of the issues raised by the pleadings it affirmed the judgment of the district court upon the new and independent ground that a patent on the subcombination should not be granted because of 'the dangers of approving a principle which permits a patent monopoly to be extended by granting claims on distinct inventions, which the applicant has no intention of exploiting as distinct inventions'. It said: 'The record shows that it (the subcombination patent) is to be used to exploit and protect the patent monopoly of another related invention, to wit: the complete machine. There is no intention to make or license others to make the partial machine because, although it is possible to use it without the cutting knife, it is not designed for such independent use.' It thought that the grant of a patent which the patentee has no intention of exploiting as a distinct invention 'for the purpose of blocking the development of machines which might be constructed by others', is inconsistent with the constioutional requirement that the patent grant must 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts'.

We are pointed to no factual basis in the record for the assertion that petitioner contemplates either the misuse or non-use of the combination patent other than that suggested in the court's opinion that the complete machine does the work better than the subcombination, without the knife, can do it and that there would be no reason to manufacture the partial machine when the complete machine was available. A separate opinion in which all the judges concurred also states that petitioner 'admitted, both on argument and in its brief in the present case, that its purpose in filing the disputed claims was to 'protect' the main invention and that it had no intention of manufacturing the subcombination machine'. The reference, as agreed by counsel on the argument before us, is to a statement in petitioner's brief in the court below that: 'The claims in issue are sought purely to prevent appropriation of the * * * machine by the obvious expedient of eliminating the splitting mechanism.' It will be observed that this statement of petitioner is not of a purpose either to suppress the use of the patented invention or to use it or the patent to exploit or enlarge the patent monopoly of the complete machine.

The court below found support for its conclusion in our decisions holding that a patentee may not enlarge the monopoly of his patent by licensing his invention on terms or conditions which tie to its use the use of material or devices which the licensed invention does not embrace, whether they are patented, Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U.S. 436, 459, 60 S.Ct. 618, 626, 84 L.Ed. 852; Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. United States, 226 U.S. 20, 33 S.Ct. 9, 57 L.Ed. 107, or unpatented. Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co., 243 U.S. 502, 37 S.Ct. 416, 61 L.Ed. 871, L.R.A.1917E, 1187, Ann.Cas.1918A, 959; United Shoe Machinery Corp. v. United States, 258 U.S. 451, 42 S.Ct. 363, 66 L.Ed. 708; Carbice Corporation American Patents Development Corp., 283 U.S. 27, 51 S.Ct. 334, 75 L.Ed. 819; Leitch Manufacturing Co. v. Barber Co., 302 U.S. 458, 58 S.Ct. 288, 82 L.Ed. 371.

It is clear that no such case is presented here. We find nothing in the statement quoted from petitioner's brief in the court below or in the record to indicate that petitioner proposes to make any such use of the patent which it now seeks, either by the method of licensing it or otherwise. The statement expresses only a purpose to prevent appropriation of the complete machine by the approrpiation of a part of it embodied in the subcombination for which the patent is asked. There is nothing to suggest any purpose or reason for a purpose to enlarge the monopoly either of the subcombination or of the complete machine by tying together their uses. Control of a part could not be used as a means of enlarging an already acquired control of the whole. And obviously licensing the subcombination, which is less useful than the whole, would not, in any circumstances disclosed by the record, be a practical means of enlarging the use of the whole. Failure to acquire control of the whole would be a legitimate reason for wishing to acquire and retain control of a part, if it involves a patentable invention. And we think it plainly is legitimate to use a patent on the subcombination as a means of preventing appropriation by others of petitioner's more important complete invention which he is using, where there is absent, as there is here, any purpose to enlarge the monopoly of either invention.

A patent on the combination embodied in the complete machine, without the allowance of the subcombination claims, would not, as the court below thought, prevent the free use of the subcombination. The Corn-Planter Patent, 23 Wall. 181, 224, 90 U.S. 181, 224, 23 L.Ed. 161; Schumacher v. Cornell, 96 U.S. 549, 554, 24 L.Ed. 676; Rowell v. Lindsay, 113 U.S. 97, 101, 5 S.Ct. 507, 509, 28 L.Ed. 906; Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Co., 320 U.S. 661, 668, 64 S.Ct. 268, 272, 88 L.Ed. 376. Hence denial of a patent on the subcombination would deprive the inventor of the benefit of the exclusive right to use the subcombination in the ways specified by the patent laws. It would also leave the public free to use, and thus to appropriate a part, however important, of the inventor's complete machine, even though patented.

If, as we must assume, petitioner has two inventions, both of which are useful and one of which includes the other in its entirety, it is evident that the value of the former would be greatly impaired if the subcombination invention could be freely used by others. See Deering v. Winona Harvester Works, 155 U.S. 286, 302, 15 S.Ct. 118, 124, 39 L.Ed. 153. But such appropriation or impairment of the value of the full combination could be achieved only by appropriation could be achieved only which is by hypothesis also a useful invention, entitled to claim the benefit and protection of the patent laws.

The statutes permit, and it is the settled practice of the Patent Office, many times sustained by this Court, to allow claims to a combination and also its subcombinations. Philadelphia, W. & B.R. Co. v. Dubois, 12 Wall. 47, 60, 79 U.S. 47, 60, 20 L.Ed. 265; Deering v. Winona Harvester Works, supra; Leeds & Catlin Co. v. Victor Talking Mach. Co., 213 U.S. 301, 318, 29 S.Ct. 495, 500, 53 L.Ed. 805; Altoona Publix Theatres v. American Tri-Ergon Corp., 294 U.S. 477, 487, 55 S.Ct. 455, 459, 79 L.Ed. 1005; Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Co., supra, 320 U.S. 667, 64 S.Ct. 272, 88 L.Ed. 376. The question then is whether without more, the use of the subcombination patent to prevent appropriation of the complete machine so infringes any provisions or principles of the patent laws, or is so contrary to principles governing the award of equitable relief as to permit the court to refuse the judgment, which the statute authorizes, directing that the patent issue.

In answering it the court below assumed that such purpose to protect the whole invention was to be achieved by complete suppression of the use of the subcombination invention and that the suppression for the protection of the complete machine would invalidate the patent because it would be contrary to the constitutional purpose and to the spirit if not the letter of the patent laws. We think both assumptions are unwarranted. Section 4886 of the Revised Statutes, 35 U.S.C.A. § 31, authorizes 'any person who has invented * * * any new and useful * * * machine' to 'obtain a patent'. The patent grant is not of a right to the patentee to use the invention, for that he already possesses. It is a grant of the right to exclude others from suing it. As the statute, R.S. § 4884, 35 U.S.C.A. § 40, provides, the grant is of the 'exclusive right to make, use, and vend' the invention, and this includes the exclusive right to license others to make, use and vend it. By the very terms of the statute the grant is nothing more than a means of preventing others, except under license from the patentee, from appropriating his invention.

It by no means follows that such a grant is an inconsistent or inappropriate exercise of the constitutional authority of Congress 'to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts' by securing to inventors 'the exclusive Right to their * * * Discoveries'. Art. 1, § 8 cl. 8. Congress, in the choice of means of promoting the useful arts by patent grants, could have provided that the grant should be conditioned upon the use of the patented invention, as in fact it did provide by the Act of 1832 (4 Stat. 577) authorizing the issue of patents to aliens conditioned upon the use of the invention, which provision was later repealed (5 Stat. 117, 125). But Congress was aware that an unpatented invention could be suppressed and the public thus deprived of all knowledge or benefit of it. It could have concluded that the useful arts would be best promoted by compliance with the conditions of the statutes which it did enact, which require that patents be granted only for a limited term upon an application fully disclosing the invention and the manner of making and using it. It thus gave to the inventor limited opportunity to gather material rewards for his invention and secured to the public the benefits of full knowledge of the invention and the right to use it upon the expiration of the patent.

This Court has consistently held that failure of the patentee to make use of a patented invention does not affect the validity of the patent. Continental Paper Bag Co. v. Eastern Paper Bag Co., 210 U.S. 405, 28 S.Ct. 748, 52 L.Ed. 1122; Crown Die & Tool Co. v. Nye Tool & Machine Works, 261 U.S. 24, 34, 43 S.Ct. 254, 256, 67 L.Ed. 516; Woodbridge v. United States, 263 U.S. 50, 55, 44 S.Ct. 45, 47, 68 L.Ed. 159; Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal, 286 U.S. 123, 127, 52 S.Ct. 546, 76 L.Ed. 1010; Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States, 323 U.S. 386, 433, 65 S.Ct. 373, 396. No question of non-use was involved in Ethyl Gasoline Corporation v. United Stares, supra, 309 U.S. 459, 60 S.Ct. 626, 84 L.Ed. 852, on which the court below relied, and it lends no support to the contention that a patentee may not rightly use his patent as a protection against misappropriation of his invention, even though it is not used. There it was held only that the monopoly of a patent afforded no defense for violations of the Sherman Act, 15 U.S.C.A. §§ 1-7, 15 note, which the patentee had effected by using his patent to enlarge the patent monopoly beyond the grant and as a means of increasing the use of an independent patented invention.

Congress has frequently been asked to change the policy of the statutes as interpreted by this Court by imposing a forfeiture ^[1] or providing for compulsory licensing ^[2] if the patent is not used within a specified time, but has not done so.

We have no occasion to consider here whether a better rule governing the grant of patents could be devised than that prescribed by Congress, as this Court has interpreted it; or whether the courts on equitable principles should decline to enjoin patent infringements or decline to compel the issue of a patent if and when it appears that the patentee or inventor intends to make no use of the invention. The record neither calls upon nor permits us to decide any of these questions, for it fails to establish that petitioner has any such intention. Petitioner's intended use of the patent to prevent others from appropriating it and by that means from appropriating an essential part of his complete machine is in no way inconsistent with petitioner's making other permissible uses of the subcombination patent. In fact, he does use the subcombination as a part of his completed machine and proposes to continue to use it. Execution of his declared purpose to prevent appropriation of either of his inventions, whether used separately or together, would not prevent his licensing others to make, use and vend the subcombination, on terms which would adequately protect the value of the monopoly of both his inventions to which he is entitled by the patent laws. And we cannot say that others, who could not secure a license to use the complete machine, would not find it profitable to secure, or that petitioner would not find it profitable to grant, licenses to use the subcombination which the court below has found to be a useful device which has advanced the art.

The record establishes no intention by petitioner not to use his invention, and no proposed use of it disclosed or suggested by the record affords any basis for withholding the grant of the patent. The judgment below must therefore be reversed, and the cause remanded to the Court of Appeals for further proceedings in conformity to this opinion to enable it to consider and decide the issues raised by the pleadings. See Bates v. United States, 323 U.S. 15, 17, 65 S.Ct. 15, 16, and cases cited.

Reversed.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Jutice MURPHY concur, dissenting.

Notes

1. See Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States, supra, 323 U.S. 433, 65 S.Ct. 396, n. 26.
2. See Hartford-Empire Co. v. United States, supra, n. 27.