Levi Woodbury

“ And why is not he a benefactor to the community,and to be encouraged by protection, who invents a use of so cheap an earth as clay for knobs, or in a new form or combination, by which the community are largely gainers? ”

“ There is a new manufacture, as here of clay into knobs, or knobs with a dovetail hollow combined with a shank. The books are full of such slight changes in structure, composition, or mode of application, which were novel, and better in their results, and therefore upheld, and were not and could not be regarded merely as the application of an old machine to new purposes. Beside the new material and the new mode of fastening, when the results as here are considerably improved, they suffice to make the invention patentable. ”

“ Who, too, would not deem it material to gain by the use of wood or leather, or a cheap metal, instead of gold and silver, for some manufacture or mechanical purpose, when it can be done with increased benefit as well as cheapness. ”

“ In this last case, Chief Justice Tindall goes quite as far as Chancellor Kent, and says: 'In point of law, the labor of thought or experiment and the expenditure of money are not the essential grounds of consideration on which the question whether the invention is or is not the subject-matter of a patent ought to depend. ”