Harlan P. Hamlow and Henry Rapoport v. Scientific Glass Apparatus Corp., a Corporation, and Rinco Instrumentscompany, Inc., a Corporation

Appellants brought this action against two corporate defendants for infringement of United States Patent No. 3,219,-099. The patent covers appellants’ design for a small piece of laboratory equipment known as a rotary evaporator. The district court found the patent both invalid and not infringed; we affirm .on the sole ground that the patent was invalid for obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 .

Appellants’ rotary evaporator is superior to earlier models in that it uses Teflon-to-glass joints at two crucial junctures, creating vacuum-tight connections that need no lubricants. Materials can thus be quickly evaporated without contamination. Although appellants’ new combination of old elements performs a useful function, that fact is not sufficient to uphold the patent. The prior Buehler rotary evaporator used a Teflon-to-glass joint, although not at the crucial junctures. The prior Birchall patent em ployed Teflon plugs in its design of a stopcock for laboratory glassware, thereby showing the airtight, contamination-free qualities of a Teflon-to-glass connector. Other evaporators in use employed both Teflon-to-Teflon and glass-to-glass joints, and suffered from contamination problems.…