Edwin G. Bemis v. Chevron Research Company, Standard Oil Company of California, and Stanley O. Hutchison

On March 12, 1976, the appellant, Bemis, filed a four-count complaint in the district court. The subject matter of the complaint was United States Patent No. 3,720,264 (hereinafter, “patent”); the defendants named in the complaint were Hutchison, the named inventor of the method and apparatus protected by the patent, Chevron Research Company, the assignee of the patent, and Standard Oil Company of California. The action was brought pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1338 (a), as “arising under the Patent Laws of the United States”.

The gravamen of the complaint was that Bemis, rather than Hutchison, invented the subject matter of the patent, and that Hut-chison conspired with the other two defendants to defraud the Patent Office by filing a false application. By his complaint Bemis prayed that he be found to be the only true inventor of the patent, and that the Court direct the Commissioner of Patents to issue a corrected patent to him in conformity with the requested finding. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim. The district court, upon consideration of the briefs and oral argument, granted the defendants’ motion and entered a judgment of dismissal.…