Troy v. Samson Manufacturing Corp.

942 F. Supp. 2d 189, 2013 WL 1807013, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61445
CourtDistrict Court, D. Massachusetts
DecidedApril 30, 2013
DocketCivil Action No. 11-10384-WGY
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 942 F. Supp. 2d 189 (Troy v. Samson Manufacturing Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Massachusetts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Troy v. Samson Manufacturing Corp., 942 F. Supp. 2d 189, 2013 WL 1807013, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61445 (D. Mass. 2013).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM & ORDER

YOUNG, District Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

The plaintiff, Stephen P. Troy, Jr. (“Troy”), brings this action pursuant to 35 U.S.C. section 146 (“Section 146”), seeking judicial review of a final decision and order (the “Decision”) of the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (the “Board”) of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (the “PTO”) in Patent Interference No. 105,698. The interference proceeding before the Board involved a dispute over priority between U.S. Patent Ño. 7,216,451 (the “'451 Patent”) and U.S. Patent Application No. 11/326,665 (the “'665 Application”). The interfering subject matter under the '451 Patent and the '665 Application related to a modular handguard rail for a firearm. The Board held that Troy failed to establish the priority of the '451 Patent over the '665 Application. Under Count I of the complaint, Troy requests that this Court review the Board’s decision as to the priority of invention.

A. Background

1. The Invention

Troy alleges that, in January 2003, he began designing and developing a firearm component, named the Modular Rail For-end (the “Troy Rail”), to be retrofitted to the M16 rifle and carbine. Compl. ¶ 10, ECF No. 1. The Troy Rail is designed to be “free-floating,” meaning that it does not touch the barrel of the firearm. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). This is accomplished by affixing the rail to the barrel nut of the firearm via a clamp that screws into the upper piece and by attaching the handguard to the barrel nut. Id.

Troy is the inventor and owner of the '451 Patent, which was issued on May 15, 2007. R. Patent Interference No. 105,698 (SCM) (“Interference R.”) 3350.1 Scott W. Samson (“Samson”) filed the '665 Appliea[193]*193tion on January 6, 2006.2 See id. at 884. The Board determined that Claim 8 of the '451 Patent and Claim 6 of the '665 Application are directed to the same subject matter. Id. at 881. Claim 8 states that the modular hand grip under the '451 Patent is comprised of:

[A]n upper portion having a forward end, a rearward end, an inner surface and an outer surface, the rearward end is configured to engage a top portion of a barrel nut;
lug rails project from the inner surface of upper portion at opposing sides and proximate edges thereof, the lug rails extend longitudinally from proximate the forward end to a position proximate the rearward end and include a plurality of gaps formed therein;
a clamp assembly for engaging a bottom portion of the barrel nut is attached to the rearward end of the upper portion;
a lower portion having a top section and opposing side sections extending therefrom and each terminating at an edge, a plurality of spaced apart lugs extending from each edge and receivable in the gaps in the lug rails of the upper portion and translatable in one of a forward direction and a rearward direction positioning the lugs under the lug rails; and
a detent assembly carried by the clamp assembly for engaging the lower portion.

Id. at 3357-58; see also id. at 3352 fig. 4 (providing an illustration of the modular hand grip from an exploded perspective).

2. Proceedings Before the Board

Troy initiated interference proceedings against Samson and Kenneth Lankarge by filing a motion with the Board asserting priority of invention. Id. at 880-81. Troy was declared the “junior party” in the interference because he filed a provisional patent application for the '451 Patent on February 10, 2006, thirty-five days after the date on which the '665 Application had been filed. See id. at 883-84. After accounting for the filings of earlier applications by both parties, the Board deemed Troy’s earliest constructive reduction-to-practice date to be February 11, 2005, and Samson’s earliest constructive reduction-to-practice date to be January 18, 2005 (the “Critical Date”). Id. at 884; see also id. at 885. As the junior party, Troy was required to demonstrate priority of invention by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. at 885; see 37 C.F.R § 41.207(a)(2).

The Board issued a decision on Troy’s motion on January 6, 2011. Interference R. at 880. In order to establish priority, Troy carried the burden of showing an actual reduction to practice of an embodiment of the invention prior to the Critical Date. See id. at 885. The Board determined that Troy failed to demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence an actual reduction to practice of every element of Claim 3 prior to the Critical Date. See id. at 885-93.

Since an actual reduction to practice had not been established, Troy had to show that he earlier conceived of the invention in order to prove inurement or derivation. Id. at 894. Troy sought to demonstrate that he conceived of the invention on any of five separate occasions: April 2003, June 2003, July 2003, November 2003, and [194]*194January 2004. See id. at 894-902. The Board concluded that the evidence, taken either individually for the various alleged dates of conception or collectively, did not account for all the elements of Claim 3. Id. at 902. Consequently, the Board determined that “Troy ha[d] not sufficiently demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence a prior conception of the [invention].” Id.

The Board next turned to the question of whether Samson’s actions could properly be said to have inured to Troy’s benefit. See id. at 902-04. Troy alleged that he communicated his conception to Samson, that Samson had signed a confidentiality agreement, and that all actions taken by Samson between April 9, 2003, and February 2004 relating to the subject matter of Claim 3 inured to the benefit of Troy. Id. at 902-03. The Board, however, disagreed, determining that Troy had not sufficiently demonstrated that Samson had performed any act of inurement. Id. at 904.

Finally, the Board briefly entertained Troy’s derivation argument but ultimately found that Troy’s failure to establish conception of the invention prevented him from establishing that Samson derived the subject matter of Claim 3. Id.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review and Admission of Further Evidence

A party that is dissatisfied with a decision of the Board may commence a civil action in district court. 35 U.S.C. § 146. On motion of either party, the record from the Board proceedings may be admitted into evidence “without prejudice to the right of the parties to take further testimony.” Id. This renders the district court proceeding in a Section 146 action a strange “hybrid of an appeal and a trial de novo.” AlphaVax, Inc. v. Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics, Inc., 719 F.Supp.2d 156, 162 (D.Mass.2010) (quoting Winner Int’l Royalty Corp. v. Wang,

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Bluebook (online)
942 F. Supp. 2d 189, 2013 WL 1807013, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 61445, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/troy-v-samson-manufacturing-corp-mad-2013.