Melville Fuller

“ Justice BRADLEY: 'A disclaimer is usually and properly employed for the surrender of a separate claim in a patent, or some other distinct and separable matter, which can be exscinded without mutilating or changing what is left standing. Perhaps it may be used to limit a claim to a particular class of objects, or even to change the form of a claim which is too broad in its terms; but certainly it cannot be used to change the character of the invention. ”

“ In the Coes wrench the step was rigidly fastened to the bar by being griped between a shoulder above it and upon the bar and the handle below it, which was backed up by the nut screwed upon the lower extremity of the bar. Dispensing with a washer between a nut and that upon which it acts, makes no change in the office of the nut. The action of the nut, M, of the Coes wrench in griping the step-plate is the same as that of the nut, F, of the patent. ”

“ The nut is interiorly recessed at d, for the purpose of forming a ferrule for the top of the wooden handle.' The purpose of supporting the step by the nut, F, and fastening the step rigidly to the wrench-bar by means of that nut, is the relief of the wooden handle from the strain of back pressure. ”