## Facts

- Verdegaal Brothers, Inc. owned U.S. Patent No. 4,310,343 covering a process for producing liquid fertilizer from a urea–sulfuric acid reaction.
- The claimed process addressed the exothermic reaction by performing it in the presence of a “non-reactive, nutritive heat sink,” described as a previously produced batch of fertilizer (“heel”).
- Representative claim limitations required, among other things: (1) a heat sink of at least 5% of the end product; (2) water not greater than 15%; (3) urea at least 50% of the end product weight; and (4) concentrated sulfuric acid at least 10% of the end product weight.
- Union Oil manufactured similar urea–sulfuric acid liquid fertilizers, which Verdegaal alleged infringed claims of the ’343 patent.
- Union Oil asserted noninfringement and invalidity, primarily that claims 1, 2, and 4 were anticipated by the Stoller patent, which the jury was instructed to treat as prior art.
- The Stoller patent disclosed making similar fertilizer by adding water (15%), urea (50% or more), and sulfuric acid (10% or more) to a recycled fertilizer batch (a heel) to moderate reaction heat.

## Issues

1. Whether claims 1, 2, and 4 were invalid as anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102 by the Stoller patent, requiring entry of judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV).
2. Whether asserted distinctions (e.g., acid-addition rate; Stoller’s not labeling the heel a “heat sink”) avoided anticipation.

## Decision

- The Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s judgment and held claims 1, 2, and 4 invalid as anticipated by the Stoller patent.
- Because anticipation was established as a matter of law, the jury’s validity and infringement verdict could not stand.
- The court concluded the district court should have granted Union Oil’s motion for JNOV on invalidity.

## Legal Principles

- A claim is anticipated if a single prior-art reference discloses each and every claim element, expressly or inherently.
- Anticipation does not require identical terminology; disclosure of the same structure or steps and their functional relationship is sufficient.
- A patentee cannot avoid anticipation by relying on features described in the specification but omitted from the claim language (e.g., an asserted “rapid” addition of sulfuric acid when the claims recite no rate limitation).
- On review of a denied JNOV, if the evidence permits only one reasonable conclusion on anticipation, invalidity may be decided as a matter of law.

## Conclusion

The court held the asserted process claims invalid because the Stoller patent disclosed the same reactants, quantitative limits, and use of a recycled fertilizer heel that functioned as the claimed heat sink; unclaimed distinctions and differences in wording did not defeat anticipation.


Verdegaal Bros., Inc. v. Union Oil Co. of Cal., 814 F.2d 628 (Fed. Cir. 1987)