Robert Cooper Grier

“ He was not the inventor of the conical cover used in hardening hat-bodies formed on a cone, nor of rubbing them by a reciprocating motion, but merely of a certain combination of devices of produce a certain effect. Both the operation and the result were well known, and the invention consisted only of the devices combined to perform the operation and produce the result. It was open to every other person to make any other combination of devices to perform the operation, which was not a mere colorable adoption of the patentee's combination. ”

“ It is plain that this interpolation of an abstract generalization, to render the specific description of the concrete machine more elastic, was suggested by an examination of the Boyden machine. If the same construction be given to the claim of Taylor, as it would necessarily invoke in a contest with preceding inventions, to save it from the charge of being too broad, the Boyden machine would be properly pronounced as no infringement: on the contrary, such a construction of it as would include the Boyden machine, would make it void for being too broad. ”