Nathan Clifford

“ Meritorious inventors are entitled to protection; but it is settled law that a mere carrying forward of an original patented conception, involving only change of form, proportions, or degree, or the substitution of equivalents, doing the same thing as the original invention by substantially the same means, is not such an invention as will sustain a patent, even though the changes of the kind may produce better results. ”

“ Effective support to the proposition that nothing but invention or discovery will entitle an applicant to a patent is also found in the reported decisions of the circuit courts, as appears from the following citations. Judge Story held, many years ago, that the mere application of an old process, machine, or device to a new use was not patentable,-that there must be some new process or some new machinery to produce the result, in order that the supposed inventor may properly have a patent for the alleged improvement. ”

“ Having already decided that the respondents do not use the clamps of the complainants, it is unnecessary to pursue the inquiry, except to say that it is settled law, that, where the respondent in constructing his machine omits one of the ingredients of the complainant's combination, he does not infringe the complainant's patent. ”

“ Ordinary mechanics know how to use bolts, rivets, and screws, and it is obvious that any one knowing how to use such devices would know how to arrange a deflecting plate at one side of a circular saw which had such a device properly arranged on the other side, it being conceded that both deflecting plates are constructed and arranged precisely alike, except that one is placed on one side of the saw and the other on the opposite side. ”

“ Operators of machines for sawing lumber, whether with circular or vertical saws, have long known that some means were useful, if not absolutely necessary, to spread the two parts of the lumber behind the saw, so as to prevent the lumber as sawed from binding against the two faces of the saw to such an extent as to endanger the saw and impede the progress of the work without an increase of the motive power. ”

“ That the invention consists in the employment or use of elastic claimps attached to the ordinary adjustable and elastic beds, between which the stuff is fed to the saw. Clamps of the kind have an elasticity independent of the beds, and compensate for the varying thickness of the different pieces of stuff to be sawed, by holding firmly the extreme end of the stuff, and keeping it in proper position to the saw, however much the elastic bed may be expanded by a succeeding piece of stuff of greater thickness. ”

“ Old processes are sometimes applied to new subjects, and where that was so, in a case which did not require the exercise of the inventive faculty, and without the development of any idea which could be deemed new or original in the sense of the patent law, it was held that the supposed improvement was not the subject of a patent, and that courts of justice may take judicial notice of a thing in the common knowledge and use of the people throughout the country. ”

“ Patented improvements which are not new and useful, or which did not require any invention or discovery to make the same, as compared with what existed or was in use before, may be declared invalid by the court in an equity suit. ”

“ Infringement is charged, and that the respondents have made large gains and profits by the unlawful use of the patented invention; and the complainants pray for an account and for an injunction.
Process having been issued and service made, the respondents appeared and filed an answer, in which they set up in substance and effect the following defences: 1. That the invention is of no utility or value. 2. That the patentees are not the original and first inventors of the alleged improvement. ”

“ Conclusive evidence to support that proposition is found in the disclaimer filed by the complainants pending the suit, in addition to the other evidence in the case, which is abundantly sufficient to establish the proposition, even without the disclaimer. Authority to make such a disclaimer is beyond question, if it be made in writing, and is duly attested and recorded in the Patent Office. When so made, attested, and recorded, it becomes a part of the original specification to the extent of the interest of those who make it ”

“ Neither the clamp on the line side or the one on the opposite side in the respondents' machine have any lateral elasticity with respect to the roller-bed, or a swinging motion, and the one on the line side of the saw has no lateral motion whatever when the machine is in operation. ”

“ Ten years later, a case came before this court, in which the plaintiff claimed certain improvements in the construction of a machine for sawing lumber with the circular saw, including the manner of affixing and guiding the saw by allowing end play to its shaft, in combination with the means of guiding the device by friction-rollers and other appliances. Mills for sawing logs with a circular saw had been well known long before the supposed invention ”

“ They employ a circular saw, made of thin steel-plate, such as is used for sawing veneers, on one side of which is a circular plate secured by rivets or screws, the plate being less in diameter than the saw, which has the effect to stiffen the plate of the saw, and to enable the operator to use a thinner saw than he would otherwise be able to do. ”

“ Competent experts testify that the clamps in the machine used by the respondents have no lateral elastic or vibratory motion independent of the roller-beds, and that they cannot perform the functions of the clamps described and claimed in the patent set forth in the bill of complaint ”

“ Such a machine necessarily requires a frame, and the patentees state that the frame of the machine described in the specification may be constructed in any proper manner, and that the circular saw is placed on a shaft which runs transversely across the front of the frame. ”

“ That the patented improvement, years before the application for the patent was executed, was fully described in the respective printed publications mentioned in the answer filed by the respondents.
Minute and accurate description of the patented machine is given in the drawings, and the specification divides the invention into four separate features, as follows: 1. ”