George Shiras, Jr.

“ For such discoveries and such inventions the law has given the discoverer and inventor the right to a patent,-as discoverer, for the useful art, process, method of doing a thing he has found; and, as inventor, for the means he has devised to make the discovery one of actual value. * * * The patent for the art does not necessarily involve a patent for the particular means employed for using it. Indeed, the invention of any means, in the specification or descriptive portion of the patent, is only necessary to show that the art can be used ”

“ The conclusion justified by the authorities is that whether you call Westinghouse's discovery, that 'quick action' may be accomplished by the co-operation of the main-pipe air and that from the car reservoir, a 'process,' or a 'mode of operation,' yet if he was the first to disclose it, and to describe a mechanical means to give practical effect to the invention, he must be regarded as a pioneer inventor, and as entitled to protection against those who, availing themselves of the discovery, seek to justify themselves by pointing to mere differences in form in the mechanical devices used. ”

“ But the proof is abundant, and of the most convincing character, that other instruments, carefully constructed, and made exactly in accordance with the specification, without any additions whatever, have operated, and will operate, successfully. The law does not require that a discoverer or inventor, in order to get a patent for a process, must have succeeded in bringing his art to the highest degree of perfection. ”

“ Being of the character so described as a pioneer, the patent in suit is entitled to a broad or liberal construction. In other words, the invention is not to be restricted narrowly to the mere details of the mechanism described as a means of carrying the invention into practicable operation. ”

“ The language of the statute is that 'any person who has invented or discovered any new and useful art, machine, manufacture or composition of matter,' may obtain a patent therefor. Thus, an art-a process-which is useful is as much the subject of a patent, as a machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. * * * But it is insisted that the claim cannot be sustained, because, when the patent was issued, Bell had not in fact completed his discovery. ”

“ There are cases, no doubt, in which it has been held that when a claimant has, under objection in the patent office, withdrawn certain claims, or has modified them by adding or striking out terms or phrases, and accepts a patent which does not grant the abandoned or unmodified claims, he cannot be heard to insist upon such a construction of the allowed claims as would cover what had been previously rejected. ”

“ Where they are separable, where the whole substance of the invention may be copied in a different form, it is the duty of courts and juries to look through the form for the substance of the invention,-for that which entitled the inventor to his patent, and which the patent was designed to secure. ”

“ Patentable improvements in machinery are almost always made by changing some one or more forms of one or more parts, and thereby introducing some mechanical principle or mode of action not previously existing in the machine, and so securing a new improved result. And, in the numerous cases in which it has been held that to copy the patentee's mode of operation was an infringement, the infringer had got forms and proportions not described, and not, in terms, claimed. ”

“ The art consists in so controlling the force as to make it accomplish the purpose. It had long been believed that, if the vibrations of air caused by the voice in speaking could be reproduced at a distance by means of electricity, the speech itself would be reproduced and understood. ”

“ That being so, the learned judge was perfectly justified in telling the jury that it was unnecessary for them to compare one apparatus with another, because, confessedly, that system of conduit pipes was a mode of heating air by an intermediate vessel between the blowing apparatus and the blast furnace, and therefore it was an infringement of the patent.' Webst. ”

“ It is enough if he describes his method with sufficient clearness and precision to enable those skilled in the matter to understand what the process is, and if he points out some practicable way of putting it into operation. ”