Stephen Johnson Field

“ Where certain properties are known to belong generally to classes of articles, there can be no invention in putting a new species of the class in a condition for the development of its properties similar to that in which other species of the same class have been placed for similar development; nor can the changed form of the article from its condition in bulk to small particles, by breaking or bruising or slicing or rasping or filing or grinding or sifting, or other similar mechanical means, make it a new article, in the sense of the patent law. ”

“ A distinction must be observed between a new article of commerce and a new article which, as such, is patentable. Any change in form from a previous condition may render the article new in commerce; as powdered sugar is a different article in commerce from loaf sugar, and ground coffee is a different article in commerce from coffee in the berry. ”

“ There is nothing new in the fact that the solution of a soluble substance is accelerated by increasing its fragmentary division; nor is there any thing new in the fact that articles with rough angles and edges can be more readily put up into packages without injury to their wrappers when reduced by mechanical division into small particles ”