Hugo Black

“ Before any inventor or discoverer shall receive a patent for his invention or discovery he shall make application therefor, in writing, to the Commissioner of Patents, and shall file in the Patent Office a written description of the same, and of the manner and process of making, constructing, compounding, and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which it appertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make, construct, compound, and use the same ”

“ Had Walker accurately described the machine he claims to have invented, he would have had no such broad rights to bar the use of all devices now or hereafter known which could accent waves. For had he accurately described the resonator together with the Lehr and Wyatt apparatus, and sued for infringement, charging the use of something else used in combination to accent the waves, the alleged infringer could have prevailed if the substituted device (1) performed a substantially different function; (2) was not known at the date of Walker's patent as a proper substitute for the resonator ”

“ That licensed persons desiring to practice the invention may know, during the term, how to make, construct, and use the invention. (3.) That other inventors may know what part of the field of invention is unoccupied.
'Purposes such as these are of great importance in every case, but the fulfillment of them is never more necessary than when such inquiries arise in respect to a patent for a machine which consists of a combination of old ingredients. ”

“ Petitioner was working in a field crowded almost, if not completely, to the point of exhaustion. In 1920, Tucker, in Patent No. 1,451,356, had shown a tuned acoustical resonator in a sound detecting device which measured distances. Lehr and Wyatt had provided for amplification of their waves. Sufficient amplification and exaggeration of all the different waves which Lehr and Wyatt recorded on their machine would have made it easy to distinguish the tubing catcher and regular shoulder waves from all others. ”

“ The Halliburton device, alleged to infringe, employs an electric filter for this purpose. In this age of technological development there may be many other devices beyond our present information or indeed our imagination which will perform that function and yet fit these claims. And unless frightened from the course of experimentation by broad functional claims like these, inventive genius may evolve many more devices to accomplish the same purpose. ”

“ We have held that a claim with such a description of a product is invalid as a violation of Rev.Stat. § 4888. Holland Furniture Co. v. Perkins Glue Co., 277 U.S. 245, 256, 257, 48 S.Ct. 474, 478, 479, 72 L.Ed. 868; General Electric Co. v. Wabash Appliance Corporation, supra. ”