Levi Woodbury

“ XIV. Whoever first perfects a machine is entitled to the patent, and is the real inventor, although others may previously have had the idea, and made some experiments towards putting it in practice. He is the inventor, and is entitled to the patent, who first brings a machine to perfection, and renders it capable of useful operation. ”

“ That if the jury believe, from the specification of the plaintiff and the testimony, that he designed to express his improvement to consist in the trough form given to the propelling plates by bending them along the centre, so that the sides of the plates shall be at right angles, or nearly so, to each other, and that this trough form, thus produced previous to giving the plate the spiral curve longitudinally, is to be considered as of the essence of plaintiff's invention, then the defendants have not infringed upon his rights, and are entitled to a verdict. ”

“ That the patent is void upon its face for this, that it embraces several distinct and separate inventions as improvements in several distinct and independent machines, susceptible of independent operation, not necessarily connected with each other in producing the result aimed at in the invention, and the subject-matter of separate and independent patents. ”

“ That the exclusive rights of a patentee are to make as well as to use, and vend to others to be used, and that the rule of damages, as against the manufacturer who has invaded the exclusive right to make it, are the profits which he has derived, or which the plaintiff might have derived from such making, because it is the sum which by his invasion he has prevented the patentee from obtaining. ”

“ That from the silence in the specification, both as to the hoop or cylindrical band and twisted spoke, notwithstanding their delineation in the drawing, the jury must infer one of two things; either that the plaintiff did not invent, and therefore did not describe them, or that they were (as his witness Allaire in substance testified) not the subject-matter of invention at the time at all, being old and well-known parts of the machine described. ”

“ From this model of 1837, and information of the patentee, Dr. Jones made the drawing of 1844.
Hogg and Delamater were iron-founders in the city of New York. They made no propellers to use, and used none; they merely manufactured them to order. They had no interest whatever in the patent right of Captain Ericsson. No evidence appears in the case, tending to show any such interest.
It is not pretended that J. B. Emerson ever, at any time, reduced his wheel to practice, until the year 1843, when he made an experiment with it in the harbor of New Orleans. ”

“ In 1841, Emerson recorded his letters anew, and filed an unattested drawing. In 1844, February 12, he completed his record by swearing to said drawing, and filing it in the Patent-Office. In March, 1844, he visited Washington, and, on consultation with Dr. Jones, prepared a new drawing, and swore to it, and filed it. In the month of May, he commenced a suit against Hogg and Delamater for making the Ericsson propeller.
In the year 1835, the instrument known as the Ericsson propeller was in operation in London. In 1838, it was patented in the United States. ”

“ And although the said John B. Emerson, in the schedule annexed to the said patent, does not claim the invention of spiral paddle-wheels, but claims merely the invention of an improvement in spiral paddle-wheels already essayed, yet he has not, in the said schedule annexed to the said patent, described in what his said improvement in the said spiral paddle-wheels consists; so that any person skilled in mechanics can know wherein the paddle-wheels mentioned in the said schedule differ from spiral paddle-wheels before known and used ”

“ It is the making and selling to be used, and not the selling or buying or making alone, for which full damages are usually given. (10 Wheaton, 350; Curtis on Pat. 256, 3 note; 3 McLean, 427.) The court, therefore, being called on to lay down some general rule, very properly informed the jury the such price might be a suitable guide, and it is the customary one followed for making and selling patent stoves, lasts, spokes, &c., and seems once to have been treated by law as the chief guide in all patent cases ”

“ They all here relate to the propelling of carriages and vessels by steam, and only differ, as they must on water, from what they are on land; a paddle-wheel being necessary on the former, and not on the latter, and one being used on the former which is likewise claimed to be an improved one. All are a part of one combination when used on the water, and differing only as the parts must when used to propel in a different element. ”

“ Stone et al., 1 Story, 288, in order to render different letters patent necessary, it is said, the inventions must be 'wholly independent of each other, and distinct inventions for unconnected objects' ”

“ We do not assent to this view.
'In the first place, the act of Congress providing for the restoration was not passed until the 3d of March, 1837; and in the second place, in addition to this, a considerable period of time must necessarily elapse before the act would be generally known; and then a still further period before copies of the drawings and models could be procured. ”

“ It may be added, however, in this connection, that the defendants are certainly relieved now from one consequence by way of damages or penalty which once existed, and which was to forfeit the materials of the machine to the patentee. ”