United States v. N Adams (901422128)

Read for 1/31/11

Reading Notes

• Companion case with the Graham case (also decided 1966)
• US wants to review a a judgment of the Court of Claims holding a patent granted to Adams for a wet battery valid
  • Adams sued the government for infringement
• USSC affirmed the finding of validity
• Patent is for a non-rechargeable electrical battery
  • First "practical, water-activated, constant potential battery which could be fabricated and stored indefinitely without fluid in its cells"
• Brought his invention to the Army and Navy who decided it wasn't workable
  • Eventually changed their mind and stated using such batteries but did not inform Adams
• Government relied heavily upon six instances of prior art
  • Court basically discredits all of these as being very dissimilar to Adams'
• Government challenged under both 102 and 103
• Said his combination provided no significant change from prior designs even though it was an improvement
  • Several errors in this
    • Water-activated sets it apart and this was not an afterthought of a patent lawyer
• If his battery was merely full of identically functioning substitutions it would not have been an improvement
• Also conclude non-obviousness
  • Long accepted notions about batteries would have deterred an inventor from the combinations used by Adams
  • Noted experts expressed disbelief

Basic Patent Law

• The claims limit the invention and specifications cannot expand the monopoly
• An inoperable invention cannot negative novelty

Class Notes

• Adams owned the patent and sued the government for infringement
  • Ultimately decided that the patent was valid and had been infringed
• Technicality of patent
  • Wet battery powered by the addition of water after manufacturing (wet means electrolyte is a liquid)
  • Provided constant voltage potential without a volatile electrolyte
    • Independent of how much current flows through the voltage remains constant under a wide temperature range
  • Drawback was once the battery was in use it couldn’t be stopped
• Section III delves into prior art
  • At the very basic level all instances were still vastly different from the present invention
  • Under section 102 it would have been invalid if the exact combination would have been used before
    • Different that 103 which decides if the new combination would have been obvious
    • Validity analysis is more based on 102 in this case
• Determined certain elements made it non-obvious
  • Unexpected characteristics
  • Experts widely discredited his finding initially
  • Primary considerations for non-obviousness were applied and determined that on an engineering level Adams’ invention was a very unique combination