Technograph Printed Circuits, Ltd. v. United States

370 F.2d 571, 177 Ct. Cl. 919, 152 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 280
United States Court of Claims·Decided December 16, 1966·No. No. 127-62·Published·Cited by 3 cases

Opinion

Per Curiam:

This case was referred to Trial Commissioner Donald E. Lane, with directions to make findings of fact and recommendation for conclusions of law pursuant to Buie 54(b) as to the issues raised by the defendant’s motion and as to the practice in the United States Patent Office in applying the Boykin Act. The commissioner has done so in a report filed J anuary 14,1966. The case has been submitted to the court on the briefs of the parties and oral argument of counsel. Since the court is in agreement with the opinion, findings, and recommendation of the commissioner, with a modification, it hereby adopts the same, as modified, as the basis for its judgment in this case, as hereinafter set forth. Therefore, defendant’s motion for partial summary judgment is denied.

Commissioner Lane’s opinion,* as modified by the court, is as follows:

This patent case comes before the court on defendant’s motion for summary judgment with respect to 4 of the 12 patents asserted hi plaintiffs’ petition. On May 18, 1964, the court denied without prejudice defendant’s motion for partial summary judgment and referred the case to the trial commissioner to take evidence, as to the issues raised by the motion and as to the practice in the United States Patent Office in applying the Boykin Act. Testimony was taken in November 1964 and in J anuary 1965.

The defendant’s motion for partial summary judgment is based upon its contention that patents 2,441,960, 2,706,697, [922]*9222,886,880, and 2,904,761 were issued under tbe Boykin Act, Public Law 690, 79th Cong. 2d Sess., 60 Stat. 940, which provides that no patent granted or validated by the Act shall in any way furnish a basis of claim against the United States. It is found that said patents were not issued under the Boykin Act and are not subject to the provisions thereof.

The Boykin Act, approved August 8,1946, was enacted for the purpose of restoring, to a certain extent, priority rights which may have been lost as a result of the international communications difficulties existing during World War II. Under the then applicable statute, Bevised Statute 4887 (Title 35 U.S.C. § 32,1946 ed.), a person who had previously filed an application for patent in a foreign country within 1 year prior to the filing date of his application for a U.S. patent, could claim the benefit of the foreign filing date as his effective date of invention in the United States, provided the foreign country afforded similar privileges to citizens of the United States. The Boykin Act permitted a person who had filed application for a patent in a friendly foreign country during World War II to claim rights of priority of the foreign filing date as his date of invention in the United States, even though the foreign filing date was more than 1 year prior to the United States filing date. In return, the Act provided that the term of. any patent issued thereunder would expire 20 years from the foreign filing date and that such patent could not be the basis of a claim against the United States Government for patent infringement. The Act specifically provided that if an applicant sought the extended rights of priority he must make written request, accompanied by a copy of his foreign application, to the United States Patent Office during the pendency of the U.S. application.

The Patent Office promulgated a procedure for processing applications requesting extended priority rights under the Boykin Act. The procedure provided that the patent examiner upon the receipt of the priority request was to acknowledge the request if all the proper papers had been filed. If the patent examiner found the claims allowable, he was to proceed and examine the foreign application to determine [923] whether the claimed invention was disclosed in the foreign application, before granting rights of priority based on the filing date of the foreign application. The procedure set forth that a supervisory examiner must approve the action granting the extended rights of priority and must approve any action withdrawing previously granted priority rights. A label was to be placed on the outside of the application file setting forth that the application had been given the benefit of the Boykin Act based upon a foreign application and that the term of the patent grant terminated 20 years from the date of the foreign filing date.

The four patents involved in the present motion resulted from an application filed in this country on February 3,1944. The patent application serial numbers and filing dates are set forth in the following table:

Appln. 520,991---Patent 2,441,960 2-3-44 5-25-4S

-Division 11,798-Patent 2,587,568 2-27-48 2-26-52

(not in suit) _Division 261,989_Patent 2,706,697 12-17-51 4-19-55

-Division 261,990_Patent 2,904,761 12-17-51 9-15-59

-Division 11,796-Abandoned 2-27-48

1-Division 290,106_Patent 2,886,880 5-26-52 5-19-59

Patent 8,^1,960

The application resulting in the ’960 patent noted that the inventor had filed three earlier applications in Great Britain concerning the same subject matter on February 2, 1943, April 3, 1943, and August 16, 1943, respectively. In July 1944, the patent examiner required the inventor to restrict his application to one invention. Shortly after the Boykin Act was passed in 1946, the inventor filed a specific request for benefits under the Act. The patent examiner did not acknowledge the request and took no action to determine if [924] this application was entitled to priority rights under the Act. The application resulted in the ’960 patent. The ’960 patent grant did not mention the Act nor does it state that the patent term is other than the normal 17-year period. The ’960 patent does carry the phrase “In Great Britain February 2, 1943.”

Defendant contends that if the inventor fulfilled all the requirements under the Boykin Act and the printed patent in its headnote recites the first filed British application, it indicates that the patent ’960 was given the right of priority under the Boykin Act. The crucial step in determining whether a patent application is entitled to priority rights in view of a foreign application is for the patent examiner to make a positive determination that the foreign application discloses the invention claimed in the application for patent in this country. There is no evidence in the record that the patent examiner made the determination. The record is also void of any action by the supervisory examiner concerning the right of priority under the Boykin Act. The file jacket does not have a Boykin Act label pasted thereon nor does the patent heading mention the Boykin Act or that the term of the patent is other than the normal statutory grant. It is concluded that patent ’960 was not issued under the Boykin Act and is not subject to the provisions thereof.

In divisional application 11,798, the patent examiner acknowledged a request for Boykin Act benefits, required restriction to one invention, and in January 1952, wrote that the application was entitled to the foreign filing date, February 2, 1943. This 11,798 application issued as patent 2,587,568, not here in suit, but bearing the caption “Section 1, Public Law 690, August 8, 1946.” The ’568 patent not here in suit was definitely granted under the Boykin Act.

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Technograph Printed Circuits, Ltd. v. United States, 370 F.2d 571, 177 Ct. Cl. 919, 152 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 280 (cc 1966).

370 F.2d 571 (Technograph Printed Circuits, Ltd. v. United States) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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