Mark Lemley loses at CAFC; the intersection of KSR and design patents
The outcome of the case was that LKQ (represented by Mark Lemley; MARK A. LEMLEY, Lex Lumina PLLC, New York, NY,
argued for appellants. ) lost its appeal:
LKQ Corp. and Keystone Automotive Industries, Inc. (collectively, “LKQ”) appeal from a final written decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) holding that LKQ failed to show by a preponderance of the evidence that U.S. Patent D797,625 (the “’625 patent”) was anticipated or would have been obvious over the cited prior art before the effective filing date. See LKQ Corp. v. GM Glob. Tech. Operations LLC, IPR2020-00534, Paper 28 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 4, 2021) (“Decision”), J.A. 1–60. For the reasons provided below, we affirm.
Judge Lourie wrote additional views to the per curiam opinion.
The panel resolves this case by determining that substantial evidence supports the Board’s conclusion that the claims of the ’625 patent are not unpatentable as anticipated or obvious. I agree. I write separately to respond to the assertion by appellant that the Board improperly relied on our predecessor court’s Rosen decision for its rationale in deciding its case. Appellant argues that Rosen, whatever its validity at the time it was decided, is inconsistent with, and hence was implicitly overruled, by the Supreme Court in KSR. The panel resolves the case without having to reach this issue, but I comment separately on the argument appellant raises, but which we do not reach. Rosen was decided by the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals in 1982, sitting with its usual en banc panel of Judges Markey, Rich, Baldwin, Miller, and Nies, hardly a group unversed in patent law. Rosen, in reversing the Patent Office’s Board of Appeals, stated that “there must be a reference, a something in existence, the design characteristics of which are basically the same as the claimed design in order to support a holding of obviousness.” In re Rosen, 673 F.2d 388, 391 (C.C.P.A. 1982) (citing In re Jennings, 182 F.2d 207, 208 (C.C.P.A. 1950)). Appellant argues that the Supreme Court in reviewing Teleflex, Inc. v. KSR Int’l Co., 119 Fed. Appx. 282 (Fed. Cir. 2005), a non-precedential decision of ours that recited almost as boilerplate the longstanding requirement that, in evaluating a combination of references asserted to render a claimed invention obvious, there must be some teaching, suggestion, or motivation shown in the prior art to combine the references, overruled Rosen. The Court stated, “[t]he obviousness analysis cannot be confined by a formalistic conception of the words teaching, suggestion, and motivation . . . .” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 419 (2007). The Court did note that the teaching, suggestion, and motivation test “captured a helpful insight,” but it found it overly “rigid.” Id. at 418. That essentially is the broad concept that appellant now asserts has overruled an almost forty-year-old design patent decision that this court has been bound to follow and has continued to follow in the decade since KSR was decided. I disagree. First, KSR did not involve design patents, which is the type of patent we have here before us. Utility patents and design patents are distinct types of patents. Utility patents protect processes, machines, manufactures, compositions of matter, and improvements thereof. But their inventions must be “useful.” 35 U.S.C. § 101. A design patent protects ornamentation, the way an article looks, 35 U.S.C. § 171. See M.P.E.P. § 1502.01. Claims and claim construction in design patents are thus quite different compared with utility patents. See Richardson v. Stanley Works, Inc., 597 F.3d 1288, 1294 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (questioning how “a court could effectively construe design claims, where necessary, in a way other than by describing the features shown in the drawings.”); Egyptian Goddess, Inc. v. Swisa, Inc., 543 F.3d 665, 679 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc) (citing Dobson v. Dornan, 118 U.S. 10, 14 (1886)) (finding that a design is better represented by an illustration than a description).
While 35 U.S.C. § 103, which deals with obviousness, does not differentiate between types of inventions, and hence applies to all types of patents, the considerations involved in determining obviousness are different in design patents. Obviousness of utility patents requires considerations such as unexpected properties, utility, and function. Design patents, on the other hand, relate to considerations such as the overall appearance, visual impressions, artistry, and style of ornamental subject matter. Ornament is in the eyes of the beholder. Functional utility is objective. What is the utility or function of something that is ornamental? To be sure, it may also be functional and have use, as do the fenders in the case before us, but that function is beside the point when considering whether its ornamental features would have been obvious. And what is an unexpected property in the context of design patents, for it must be related to ornament, as function is not to be considered in evaluating obviousness of a design? Obviousness of an ornamental design thus requires different considerations from those of a utility invention. KSR did not address any of these considerations, and it did not even mention design patents. Surely, it did not intend to speak to obviousness of designs, and what was said about a test long applied to utility inventions was not indicated to apply to design patents. It cannot reasonably be held to have overruled a precedent of one of our predecessor courts involving a type of patent it never mentioned. A comprehensive review of obviousness in design patents, Overcoming the “Impossible Issue” of Nonobviousness in Design Patents, supports the view that “KSR has very limited, if any, applicability to design patents.” Janice M. Mueller and Daniel Harris Brean, 99 KY. L. J., 419, 518 (2011). It further states that, “[m]ost of the KSR Court’s discussion is completely irrelevant to what design patents protect.” Id. It notes that “[t]he subject matter of a design patent is fundamentally different from a utility patent, as evidenced by the separate statutory provisions that define the eligible subject matter of each type of patent.” Id. “Indeed, a patented design ‘need not have any practical utility,’ the antithesis of a utility invention.” Id. Second, while Rosen may have overstated its point in adding to the quoted Jennings language such as that the primary reference must have design characteristics that are “basically the same” as those of the claimed design, this statement hardly reflects the rigidity the Court was condemning in KSR. 673 F.2d at 391. And finally, Rosen was not essentially incorrect. In any obviousness analysis, the question is whether the claimed invention was obvious, but obvious over what. One has to start from somewhere. See K/S Himpp v. Hear-Wear Techs., 751 F.3d 1362, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (finding that an examiner may not rely on his common knowledge without a supporting prior art reference) (citing M.P.E.P. § 2144.03).
LKQ Corp. and Keystone Automotive Industries, Inc. (collectively, “LKQ”) appeal from a final written decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) holding that LKQ failed to show by a preponderance of the evidence that U.S. Patent D797,625 (the “’625 patent”) was anticipated or would have been obvious over the cited prior art before the effective filing date. See LKQ Corp. v. GM Glob. Tech. Operations LLC, IPR2020-00534, Paper 28 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 4, 2021) (“Decision”), J.A. 1–60. For the reasons provided below, we affirm.
Judge Lourie wrote additional views to the per curiam opinion.
The panel resolves this case by determining that substantial evidence supports the Board’s conclusion that the claims of the ’625 patent are not unpatentable as anticipated or obvious. I agree. I write separately to respond to the assertion by appellant that the Board improperly relied on our predecessor court’s Rosen decision for its rationale in deciding its case. Appellant argues that Rosen, whatever its validity at the time it was decided, is inconsistent with, and hence was implicitly overruled, by the Supreme Court in KSR. The panel resolves the case without having to reach this issue, but I comment separately on the argument appellant raises, but which we do not reach. Rosen was decided by the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals in 1982, sitting with its usual en banc panel of Judges Markey, Rich, Baldwin, Miller, and Nies, hardly a group unversed in patent law. Rosen, in reversing the Patent Office’s Board of Appeals, stated that “there must be a reference, a something in existence, the design characteristics of which are basically the same as the claimed design in order to support a holding of obviousness.” In re Rosen, 673 F.2d 388, 391 (C.C.P.A. 1982) (citing In re Jennings, 182 F.2d 207, 208 (C.C.P.A. 1950)). Appellant argues that the Supreme Court in reviewing Teleflex, Inc. v. KSR Int’l Co., 119 Fed. Appx. 282 (Fed. Cir. 2005), a non-precedential decision of ours that recited almost as boilerplate the longstanding requirement that, in evaluating a combination of references asserted to render a claimed invention obvious, there must be some teaching, suggestion, or motivation shown in the prior art to combine the references, overruled Rosen. The Court stated, “[t]he obviousness analysis cannot be confined by a formalistic conception of the words teaching, suggestion, and motivation . . . .” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 419 (2007). The Court did note that the teaching, suggestion, and motivation test “captured a helpful insight,” but it found it overly “rigid.” Id. at 418. That essentially is the broad concept that appellant now asserts has overruled an almost forty-year-old design patent decision that this court has been bound to follow and has continued to follow in the decade since KSR was decided. I disagree. First, KSR did not involve design patents, which is the type of patent we have here before us. Utility patents and design patents are distinct types of patents. Utility patents protect processes, machines, manufactures, compositions of matter, and improvements thereof. But their inventions must be “useful.” 35 U.S.C. § 101. A design patent protects ornamentation, the way an article looks, 35 U.S.C. § 171. See M.P.E.P. § 1502.01. Claims and claim construction in design patents are thus quite different compared with utility patents. See Richardson v. Stanley Works, Inc., 597 F.3d 1288, 1294 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (questioning how “a court could effectively construe design claims, where necessary, in a way other than by describing the features shown in the drawings.”); Egyptian Goddess, Inc. v. Swisa, Inc., 543 F.3d 665, 679 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (en banc) (citing Dobson v. Dornan, 118 U.S. 10, 14 (1886)) (finding that a design is better represented by an illustration than a description).
While 35 U.S.C. § 103, which deals with obviousness, does not differentiate between types of inventions, and hence applies to all types of patents, the considerations involved in determining obviousness are different in design patents. Obviousness of utility patents requires considerations such as unexpected properties, utility, and function. Design patents, on the other hand, relate to considerations such as the overall appearance, visual impressions, artistry, and style of ornamental subject matter. Ornament is in the eyes of the beholder. Functional utility is objective. What is the utility or function of something that is ornamental? To be sure, it may also be functional and have use, as do the fenders in the case before us, but that function is beside the point when considering whether its ornamental features would have been obvious. And what is an unexpected property in the context of design patents, for it must be related to ornament, as function is not to be considered in evaluating obviousness of a design? Obviousness of an ornamental design thus requires different considerations from those of a utility invention. KSR did not address any of these considerations, and it did not even mention design patents. Surely, it did not intend to speak to obviousness of designs, and what was said about a test long applied to utility inventions was not indicated to apply to design patents. It cannot reasonably be held to have overruled a precedent of one of our predecessor courts involving a type of patent it never mentioned. A comprehensive review of obviousness in design patents, Overcoming the “Impossible Issue” of Nonobviousness in Design Patents, supports the view that “KSR has very limited, if any, applicability to design patents.” Janice M. Mueller and Daniel Harris Brean, 99 KY. L. J., 419, 518 (2011). It further states that, “[m]ost of the KSR Court’s discussion is completely irrelevant to what design patents protect.” Id. It notes that “[t]he subject matter of a design patent is fundamentally different from a utility patent, as evidenced by the separate statutory provisions that define the eligible subject matter of each type of patent.” Id. “Indeed, a patented design ‘need not have any practical utility,’ the antithesis of a utility invention.” Id. Second, while Rosen may have overstated its point in adding to the quoted Jennings language such as that the primary reference must have design characteristics that are “basically the same” as those of the claimed design, this statement hardly reflects the rigidity the Court was condemning in KSR. 673 F.2d at 391. And finally, Rosen was not essentially incorrect. In any obviousness analysis, the question is whether the claimed invention was obvious, but obvious over what. One has to start from somewhere. See K/S Himpp v. Hear-Wear Techs., 751 F.3d 1362, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (finding that an examiner may not rely on his common knowledge without a supporting prior art reference) (citing M.P.E.P. § 2144.03).
posted by Lawrence B. Ebert at 1:42 PM
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