Nathan Clifford

“ Whether a reissued patent is for the same invention as that embodied in the original patent or for a different one is a question for the court in an equity suit to be determined as a matter of construction, on a comparison of the two instruments, aided or not by the testimony of expert witnesses, as it may or may not appear that one or both may contain technical terms or terms of art requiring such assistance in ascertaining the true meaning of the language employed. ”

“ Argument is hardly necessary to show that nothing else introduced in evidence by the respondents as having been constructed by that inventor is of a character to interfere, in any substantial respect, with the novelty of the invention held by the complainants, as the weight of the evidence plainly tends to disprove the allegations of the answer, and the inferences to be drawn from a comparison of the exhibits would establish the opposite theory even if the other proofs were less decisive to that effect. ”

“ Prior to the act of Congress allowing several patents to be issued for distinct and separate parts of the thing patented, it is not probable that a bill of complaint joining five several patents in the same charge of infringement would have escaped objection from the respondent, but it will be noticed that all the claims appertain to the same general subject, and that it requires all of the inventions in question to constitute a complete self-raking harvester or reaping machine, and that they are all embodied in the machines which the complainants make and furnish to the public. ”

“ Other inventions embrace only one or more parts of a machine, as the coulter of a plough, or the divider or sweep-rake of a reaping machine; and in such cases the part or parts claimed must be specified and pointed out so that constructors, other inventors, and the public may know how to make the invention, and what is withdrawn from general use.
Patented inventions are also made which embrace both a new ingredient and a combination of old ingredients embodied in the same machine. ”

“ Original and first inventors are entitled to the benefit of their inventions if they reduce the same to practice, and seasonably comply with the requirements of the patent law in procuring letters patent for the protection of their exclusive rights. Crude and imperfect experiments are not sufficient to confer a right to a patent; but in order to constitute an invention, the party must have proceeded so far as to have reduced his idea to practice, and embodied it in some distinct form. ”

“ Improvements for which a patent may be granted must be new and useful, within the meaning of the patent law, or the patent will be void, but the requirement of the patent act in that respect is satisfied if the combination is new and the machine is capable of being beneficially used for the purpose for which it was designed, as the law does not require that it should be of such general utility as to supersede all other inventions in practice to accomplish the same object. ”

“ Congress possesses the power to pass laws to secure to inventors, for limited times, the exclusive right to their inventions, and Congress, in pursuance of that article of the Constitution, has conferred the power to grant letters patent for that purpose upon the Commissioner of Patents. Persons who have made an invention, and who desire to obtain an exclusive property therein, may make application in writing to the Commissioner of Patents, and the provision is that the commissioner, on due proceedings had, may grant a patent for the said invention. ”

“ Controversies respecting the infringement of letters patent possess, in many cases, a degree of importance much beyond the profits or damages claimed for the alleged unlawful use of the invention, as the pleadings usually put in issue, in one form or another, the validity of the letters patent alleged to be infringed, and frequently involve, directly or indirectly, the same inquiry in regard to the letters patent set up in defence as superseding the patent on which the suit is founded. ”

“ Improvements in machines protected by letters patent may also be mentioned, of a much more numerous class, where all the ingredients of the invention are old, and where the invention consists entirely in a new combination of the old ingredients, whereby a new and useful result is obtained, and many of them are of great utility and value, and are just as much entitled to protection as those of any other class. ”

“ Even more particularity of description is required in such a case, as the property of the patentee consists, not only in the new ingredient, but also in the new combination, and it is essential that his invention shall be so fully described that others may not be led into mistake, as no other person can lawfully make, use, or vend a machine containing such new ingredient or such new combination. They may make, use, or vend the machine without the patented improvements, if it is capable of such use, but they cannot use either of those improvements without making themselves liable as infringers. ”

“ He is the first inventor in the sense of the patent law, and entitled to a patent for his invention, who first perfected and adapted the same to use, and it is well wettled that until the invention is so perfected and adapted to use it is not patentable under the patent laws. ”

“ Persons owning reissued letters patent, and seeking redress from those who have invaded their exclusive rights, are not obliged to introduce in evidence the surrendered patent, and, if the old patent is not introduced by the party sued, he cannot have the benefit of such a defence. ”

“ Patent numbered seventy-two is also an arrangement of the quadrant-shaped platform immediately behind the cutting apparatus of a reaping machine, so that the platform will receive the grain as it falls from the cutting apparatus, and will support it in such a manner that it may be swept round in a curvilinear path and discharged, heads foremost, upon the ground at the side of the platform out of the path of the horses when they return. ”

“ They cannot suppress subsequent improvements which are substantially different, whether the new improvements consist in a new combination of the same ingredients, or of the substitution of some newly-discovered ingredient, or of some old one, performing some new function not known at the date of the letters patent, as a proper substitute for the ingredient withdrawn from the combination constituting their invention. ”

“ Special reference is made in the opinion of the district judge to the means employed by the respondents in supporting the reel, as showing that the machines which they have made and sold do not infringe the second claim of the original patent. His view is that their machines do not infringe that claim because they do not employ but one reel-post instead of two, as shown in the complainants' patent, but it is so obvious that the one post with the frame attached to the upper end is substantially the same thing that it is not deemed necessary to pursue the argument. ”

“ The defendants also contended that there was no novelty in the invention, and that Palmer and Williams had been anticipated by Nelson Platt's patent, and although Palmer and Williams's machine differed from Platt's, yet there was no invention in the change from Nelson Platt's rake to the complainants'; that all that Palmer and Williams had in fact done was to take Platt's automatic sweep-rake and put it upon Seymour's quadrant-shaped platform; and that doing this was not invention, but merely the exercise of ordinary mechanical skill. ”

“ Guard fingers through which a sickle vibrates are secured upon the front edge of a platform shaped like a quadrant or sector of a circle, of which the arm or lever that carries the rake-head forms the radius, and the fulcrumpin on which the arm or lever vibrates constitutes the centre, the whole operating so that the grain is swept round, on an are of a circle, and discharged in gavels upon the ground behind the driving wheel. ”

“ The reaping machine, when doing its work, passes around the field, the horses being attached in front, and to one side of it, and if, while cutting the first swath, the grain was to pass directly back and fall on the ground in the rear of the sickle, as the horses came around with the machine to cut the second swath, they would walk over and trample upon this grain which had been just cut. ”

“ Machines were also made by him with two platforms, or with a platform in two parts, the one being attached to the rear of the other, but it required two men to do the work which, with the complainants' machine, is easily and much better accomplished by one, which is certainly all the explanation which need be given of those machines in the present case. ”

“ Such a defence set up in a case where the complainants file the general replication is of no avail unless sustained by proof, and the respondents did not introduce any proofs to sustain it, which is all that need be said upon the subject.
8. That the combination claimed in each of the several letters patent is a combination of old parts, the combining of which involved no invention, but merely the skill of an intelligent mechanic or other person skilled in the manufacture and use of harvesting machines. ”

“ Designed as the improvements were to accomplish the same object as the other two improvements previously described, the patentees or owners of the several letters patent elected to compromise rather than litigate, and the result was that the entire interest became ultimately vested in the appellants. ”

“ Thus, if S represents the standing grain and P the platform, and if the distinctly-marked horse-tracks, T, in the
cut, represent the path just passed over by the horses, in cutting the first swath, then the dotted horse-tracks, t, show the path the horses will pass over on their next round. ”

“ Reissued letters patent No. 72, dated May 7, 1861, being a reissue of one of three parts of a prior reissue of the original patent, dated July 8, 1851, which was granted to William H. Seymour for a new and useful improvement in reaping machines. (4.) Reissued letters patent No. 1683, dated May 31, 1864, being a reissue of another of the three parts of the prior reissue of that patent, as more fully explained in the pleadings; the charge being that the respondents have infringed the first claim. ”

“ Next follows a reference to the driving wheel, which, as represented, is placed between the outer longitudinal beam and the central beam, having its bearings on arched supports or brackets rising from each of the beams composing the frame. ”