Patent attorney

“ There are two classes of patent attorneys, one class consisting of conscientious, honorable gentlemen, who consider it their duty, when an unsophisticated inventor comes before them with an idea which the inventor considers new, to tell him the truth about his invention and to inform him whether it is really an original invention or not, or merely a slight modification of some old idea on which no protection can be secured. There is another class of attorneys who have been more properly termed patent sharks, who will get a patent on anything brought to them ”

“ It is an elementary proposition in patent law, that, to entitle a plaintiff to recover for the violation of a patent, he must be the original inventor, not only in relation to the United States, but to other parts of the world. ”

“ Nothing is better settled in the law of patents than that the patentee may claim the whole or only a part of his invention, and that, if he only describe and claim a part, he is presumed to have abandoned the residue to the public. The object of the patent law in requiring the patentee to 'particularly point out and distinctly claim the part, improvement, or combination which he claims as his invention or discovery' is not only to secure to him all to which he is entitled, but to apprise the public of what is still open to them. ”

“ The court ought not to be called upon to explore the entire history of an art in order to ascertain what a patentee might have included in his patent had he been so disposed. If he was the author of any other invention than that which he specifically describes and claims, though he might have asked to have it patented at the same time, and in the same patent, yet if he has not done so, and afterwards desires to secure it, he is bound to make a new and distinct application for that purpose, and make it the subject of a new and different patent. ”

“ Inventors may, if they can, keep their invention secret; and if they do for any length of time, they do not forfeit their right to apply for a patent, unless another in the mean time has made the invention, and secured by patent the exclusive right to make, use, and vend the patented improvement. ”

“ But the patent for an invention conveys nothing which the government owns or its predecessors ever owned. The invention is the product of the inventor's brain, and if made known would be subject to the use of any one, if that use were not secured to him. Such security is afforded by the act of congress when his priority of invention is established before the officers of the patent-office, and the patent is issued. The patent is the evidence of his exclusive right to the use of the invention ”

“ Patents for lands, equally with patents for inventions, have been deemed prima facie evidence that they were regularly granted, whenever they have been produced under the great seal of the government; without any recitals or proofs that the prerequisites of the acts under which they have been issued have been duly observed. In cases of patents, the Courts of the United States have gone one step further, and as the patentee is required to make oath that he is the true inventor, before he can obtain a patent, the patent has been deemed prima facie evidence that he has made the invention. ”

“ Justice Nelson said, 'The patentee may forfeit his right to the invention if he constructs it and vends it to others to use, or if he uses it publicly himself in the ordinary way of a public use of a machine at any time prior to two years before he makes his application for a patent. ”

“ In regard, however, to the kindred subject of patents for invention, they cannot by law be issued to the inventor until the novelty, the utility, and the actual discovery or invention by the claimant have been established by proof before the Commissioner of Patents; and when he has secured such a patent, and undertakes to obtain redress for a violation of his right in a court of law, the question of invention, of novelty, of originality, is always open to examination. ”

“ Justice Bradley, said: 'That the government of the United States, when it grants letters patent for a new invention or discovery in the arts, confers upon the patentee an exclusive property in the patented invention which cannot be appropriated or used by the government itself, without just compensation, any more than it can appropriate or use, without compensation, land which has been patented to a private purchaser, we have no doubt. ”

“ A patent, in a court of law, is conclusive as to all matters properly determined by the Land Department, when its action is within the scope of its authority, that is, when it has jurisdiction under the law to convey the land. In that court the patent is unassailable for mere errors of judgment. Indeed, the doctrine as to the regularity and validity of its acts, where it has jurisdiction, goes so far that if in any circumstances under existing law a patent would be held valid, it will be presumed that such circumstances existed. ”

“ Where the thing patented is an entirety, consisting of a single device or combination of old elements incapable of division or separate use, the respondent cannot escape the charge of infringement by alleging or proving that a part of the entire invention is found in one prior patent, printed publication, or machine, and another part in another prior exhibit, and still another part in a third exhibit, and from the three or any greater number of such exhibits draw the conclusion that the patentee is not the original and first inventor of the patented improvement. ”

“ Any assignment or transfer, short of one of these, is a mere license, giving the licensee no title in the patent, and no right to sue at law in his own name for an infringement.'
We see no reason to qualify in any way the language of these opinions. While it is sometimes said that each claim of a patent is a separate patent, it is true only to a limited extent. ”

“ We are not persuaded that the public and those affected by patents should lose the protection of this statute merely because the patented device is a combination of old elements.
Patents on machines which join old and well-known devices with the declared object of achieving new results, or patents which add an old element to improve a preexisting combination, easily lend themselves to abuse. And to prevent extension of a patent's scope beyond what was actually invented, courts have viewed claims to combinations and improvements or additions to them with very close scrutiny. ”

“ Five witnesses admitted to be credible were examined by the respondents, whose testimony clearly shows that the thing patented had been previously known and used very extensively in this country by the persons named in the answer and by many others.
Exclusive rights of the kind are granted only to inventors or discoverers of some new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or some new and useful improvement thereof; and the law is well settled that nothing short of invention or discovery will support a patent for any such alleged new and useful improvement. ”

“ It is undoubtedly true, as a general rule, that a patent of the United States, whether for land or for an invention, can be attacked for defects not apparent on its face, only by regular proceedings instituted for that purpose, and is not open to collateral attack except where specially provided by statute. ”

“ To escape the incessant and intense competition which exists in every department of industry, it is not strange that persons should seek the cover of the patent act, for any happy effort of contrivance or construction; nor that patents should be very frequently employed to obstruct invention, and to deter from legitimate operations of skill and ingenuity. Thid danger was foreseen, and provided for, in the patent act. The patentee is obliged, by law, to describe his invention, in such full, clear, and exact terms, that from the description, the invention may be constructed and used. ”

“ But patents are often granted with a view to leaving open, to be decided by the courts, questions which the patent office does not deem it proper to adjudicate against the applicant by withholding the patent. ”

“ But this, we think, does not meet the objection, which, more precisely stated, is that the machine and work holder patents, fairly read, do not embrace a patent for the dominating new result, the process of the reissue patent, but are patents for a particular combination of mechanical means, useful, as is that of petitioner, in availing of the process, but which, as we have said, does not involve invention. ”

“ We claim that there can be no patent in the United States founded upon the material used, unless where a new combination of materials is made use of, and then it comes under that clause of the patent law which authorizes a patent for any new composition of matter. ”

“ They know, theoretically, that a patent, to be sustained in the courts, must be for an invention which is "new and useful"; but fail, practically, to apply the test. Evidently the existing system tends to betray an over-sanguine inventor. A solicitor of patents will cheerfully take a fee and undertake to obtain letters. The patent-office will accept further fees; will make an examination for novelty, which is good, as far as it goes, and in some measure a protection against launching an unprofitable venture; and will grant a patent. ”

“ The reason usually given for requiring a more liberal construction of patents, than of other instruments, is, that there is a great difficulty in giving exact descriptions of inventions. Conceding the fact to be so, it may be a sufficient answer to say, that the statute requires an exact description as a condition of the grant. But, aside from the statute, it should be borne in mind, that every mechanic in the land is bound, at his peril, to decide correctly, from the specification, what every patent, touching his business, covers ”

“ True, the patent states the invention to be of a new and useful machine for rolling puddle balls, &c., but this is not so repugnant to the description of the invention contained in the specification, as would preclude the court from adjudging that the government intended to and did grant the patent, for the invention described in the specification, to wit,-for an improvement in the process, &c. ”

“ Foreseeing that some time must necessarily elapse before patentees could be informed of their rights and duties, and prepare copies of their patents and drawings and models, Congress has provided, in this section, that, from the 15th of December, 1836, when the patent-office was burned, to the 1st day of June, 1837, and not after, patentees and others may give in evidence their patents in any court, notwithstanding that they have not been re-recorded, and no verified drawing of the invention has been filed in the patent-office. ”

“ Evidence of that kind, though not controlling, is sometimes introduced in suits on patents as indicative of invention in the production of new and beneficial results, but it is not relevant here, nor are the affidavits presented on the question of value if the patent were granted. The matter in dispute must have actual value, and that cannot be supplied by speculation on the possibility that, in a given case, an invention might be held patentable. ”

“ This Board would, therefore, deprecate a too great facility in the obtaining of Patents. If the cost be made cheap, every trifling improvement in every process of manufacture would be secured by a Patent. In a few years no man would be able to make such improvement in his machinery, or processes, as his own experience may suggest, without infringing upon some other person’s Patent. Endless litigation would follow, and the spirit of invention in small matters would be rather checked than encouraged. ”

“ Invalid and inoperative patents may be surrendered and reissued for the same invention, but Congress never intended that a patent which was valid and operative should be reissued merely to afford the patentee an opportunity to expand the exclusive privileges which it secures, to enable him to suppress subsequent improvements which do not conflict with the invention described in the surrendered patent. ”