William Burnham Woods

“ It is the policy of the patent laws to forbid the issue of a patent for an invention which has been in public use before the application therefor. The statute of 1836 (5 St. 117, § 6) did not allow the issue of a patent when the invention had been in public use or on sale for any period, however short, with the consent or allowance of the inventor; and the statute of 1870 (16 St. 201, § 24; Rev. St. § 4886) does not allow the issue, when the invention had been in public use for more than two years prior to the application, either with or without the consent or allowance of the inventor. ”

“ The testimony shows that as early as the year 1860, James Manning, the inventor, was engaged in the manufacture of isinglass at Ipswich, Massachusetts, in copartnership with his brother-in-law Caleb Norwood, under the name of Norwood & Manning. In that year Oliver C. Smith, a machinist at Salem, constructed for the firm a machine containing adjustable hollow water-cooled rolls, with stationary scrapers, substantially such as are described in the patent, for converting isinglass into sheets in the manner therein set forth. ”

“ The appellants contend that the patent covers an improvement in the process of making isinglass. It is not contended that the patent covers the rolls between which the fish-sounds are passed, or the keeping of the rolls cool by making them hollow and injecting a stream of cold water into the cavity, nor the automatic scrapers, but in the use of automatic scrapers applied to such rolls to prevent the isinglass from being carried through the rolls a second time without aeration. ”