Omark Industries, Inc. v. The Carlton Company and Raymond Carlton

Appellant Omark Industries (hereinafter “Omark”) appeals from a judgment invalidating its patent for a brush cutting chain invented by appellee Raymond Carlton. The district court found that the brush-cutting chain had been in public use more than one year before May of 1959 when the patent was applied for and held the patent invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 102 . For the reasons stated below, we concur with the findings of the district court, 458 F.Supp. 449 , and affirm its judgment.

FACTS

Omark designs, manufactures, and markets saw chains for use on motorized chain saws. Between 1955 and 1957, appellee Raymond Carlton [“Carlton”], then chief engineer at Omark, designed a saw chain for use in cutting small tree limbs and brush [hereinafter “brush-cutting chain,” “chain”].

In early 1957, Omark’s engineering department undertook substantial field testing of the brush-cutting chain at the site of the North Fork Reservoir on the Clackamas River in Oregon. Members of the engineering department personally placed samples of the brush-cutting chain on the saws of workers cleaning brush on the dam site, and demonstrated to the workers the proper use of the chain. No restrictions were placed…