Monarch Knitting Machinery Corp. v. Sulzer Morat GmbH

139 F.3d 877, 1998 WL 117786
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
DecidedMarch 10, 1998
DocketNo. 97-1224
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 139 F.3d 877 (Monarch Knitting Machinery Corp. v. Sulzer Morat GmbH) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Monarch Knitting Machinery Corp. v. Sulzer Morat GmbH, 139 F.3d 877, 1998 WL 117786 (Fed. Cir. 1998).

Opinion

RADER, Circuit Judge.

On summary judgment, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York declared claims 1-5, 7-11, 13, and 15 of U.S. Patent No. 4,452,053 (the ’053 patent) invalid for obviousness. Because the trial court improperly resolved genuine issues of material fact, this court vacates the judgment and remands for further proceedings.

I.

The ’053 patent covers thin metal needles for machines that automatically knit yarn into fabric. The knitting machine industry [879]*879refers to the ’053 needles as “low-profile” needles. A figure from the ’053 patent, reproduced below, shows a “low-profile” needle. The labels accompanying- the figure denote various portions of the needle,

[[Image here]]

As illustrated, a low-profile needle has a “head” that is bent like a hook, a shaft (or shank) that has at least one “bridge” (the bridge is a “stem” supported by two or more “guidepieces” that extend to the “back” of the needle), and at least one “butt” attached to the shaft in the region of the bridge. The portion of the stem that runs parallel to the needle back is called a “segment.” The “first segment” lies between the head and the butt.

Depending on its size, a knitting machine requires up to 4000 or more needles. Each needle rests with its back against the bottom of a groove. A cam strikes and releases the butt to move the needle forward and back within the groove. This reciprocating needle motion within the groove accomplishes the knitting.

To optimize output, fabric manufacturers, of course, wish to run the machine as fast as possible. The major limit on the speed of automated knitting machines, however, has been the tendency of needle hooks to break. Even a single broken needle leaves a long disfiguring line in the knitted fabric. To avoid the downtime required to replace a broken needle, machine owners often must run the machines at slower speeds in order to minimize needle breakage.

In 1976, one of the appellants, Sulzer Mo-rat GmbH (Sulzer Morat), commissioned a study to determine the causes of hook breakage. The researchers observed the effects of various design changes on the vibration of knitting needles. For example, when the cam’s surface strikes the butt of a needle, it causes shock waves and vibrations in the needle. After using high-speed photography to observe the vibrations, the researchers determined that a smaller first segment height produced superior results. Sulzer Morat filed a German patent application on May 12, 1978, and a U.S. patent application on May 11, 1979, claiming priority from the filing date of the German application. The ’053 patent issued on June 5,1984.

The only independent claim of the ’053 patent, claim 1, states:

A stamped knitting-tool which can be employed in knitting machines and has a head bent like a hook, a shaft having at least one bridge which consists of two gui-depieees extending as far as the back of the knitting-needle and a stem arranged above the back to bridge across the gui-depieces, and at least one butt coupled to the shaft in the region of the bridge, where the stem includes at least one first segment arranged between the head and the butt, said tool including means for controlling vibration within the needle and preventing tool breakage at increasing knitting speeds, said means including the shape of said needle which has said first segment ... having a length (l) of at least eight millimeters (8 mm) and a height (h) of at most eleven tenths of a millimeter (1.1 mm).

(emphasis added). During the prosecution of the ’053 patent, the examiner rejected claim [880]*8801 as obvious in view of U.S. Patent No. 3,464,237, issued to Kohorn in 1969. -The Kohorn ’237 patent taught the use of cutouts at the back of the needle to reduce vibration, “thereby substantially lowering the frequency of needle breakage” and increasing the speed of knitting machines “by twenty percent.” Kohorn ’237 patent, col. 2, lines 5-12. Kohorn taught that the cutouts should extend approximately one-half the distance from the back of the needle towards the front. The examiner reasoned that one of ordinary skill in this art, knowing of solid shank needles with a shank height of 2.2 mm and applying the teachings of the Ko-horn ’237 patent, would create a needle with the dimensions of claim 1. In response, Sul-zer Morat pointed out that no known prior art needles had a shank height of less than 2.85 mm, let alone 2.2 mm. The examiner allowed the application, and the ’053 patent issued. Sulzer Morat was the initial assign-ee.

In 1985, Monarch Knitting Machinery Corp. (Monarch) filed a declaratory judgment action against Sulzer Morat in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Monarch asserted, inter alia, that the ’053 patent was invalid for obviousness. Shortly thereafter, the district court stayed the proceedings pending a reexamination by the Patent and Trademark Office '(PTO) in light of newly discovered prior art.

The new prior art was a Japanese publication that disclosed two needles with shank heights of 1.92 mm and 2.0 mm. Once again, the examiner rejected the ’053 patent in view of the Kohorn ’237 patent, this time in combination with the Japanese publication. On appeal, the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences concluded that the examiner had not shown a prima facie case of obviousness, because the needles disclosed in the Japanese publication had first segment lengths of less than 8 mm. A reexamination certificate confirming all of the original claims issued on November 13,1990.

Meanwhile, Sulzer Morat had assigned all of its rights in the ’053 patent to Theodor Groz & Sohne and Ernst Beckert Nadelfa-brik Commandit-Gesellshaft (Groz-Beekert). After the reexamination, Groz-Beckert commenced an infringement action against Monarch and its suppliers. The district court consolidated the two actions.

On September 7, 1994, Monarch filed a motion seeking summary judgment that all claims of the ’053 patent were invalid for obviousness. The district court granted the motion as to claim 1, but concluded that the record did not contain sufficient evidence to rule on the other claims. On April 19, 1996, Monarch filed a similar summary judgment motion for claims 2-5, 7-11, 13, and 15 on a supplemented record. The district court granted the motion and entered final judgment on the declaratory judgment claim for invalidity under Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b). This appeal followed.

This court concludes that genuine issues of material fact remain. Although Groz-Bec-kert later supplemented the record with additional evidence of objective indicia of non-obviousness, this evidence was not before the trial court for the first motion for summary judgment. Except as otherwise stated, this court relies only on the evidence available to the district court when it entered summary judgment on claim 1. Thus, this court’s conclusion necessarily follows for all the claims at issue, regardless of the fact that the district court invalidated all other claims in a second motion on a supplemented record.

II.

This court reviews a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo by reapplying the standard applicable at the district court. See Conroy v. Reebok Int’l, Ltd., 14 F.3d 1570

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Monarch Knitting Machinery Corp. v. Sulzer Morat Gmbh
139 F.3d 877 (Federal Circuit, 1998)

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139 F.3d 877, 1998 WL 117786, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/monarch-knitting-machinery-corp-v-sulzer-morat-gmbh-cafc-1998.