Royal patent

“ Lewis, lays it down, 'that if the patent be for an improvement in an existing machine, the patentee must, in his specification, distinguish the new from the old, and confine his patent to such parts only as are new, for if both are mixed together, and a patent taken for the whole, it is void.' What is the reason for all this?
In the first place, it is to enable the public to enjoy the full benefit of the discovery, when the patentee's monopoly is expired; by having it so described on record, that any person skilled in the art, of which the invention is a branch, may be able to construct it. ”

“ It is not a public knowledge of his invention that precludes the inventor from obtaining a patent for it, but a public use or sale of it. In England, formerly, as well as under our Patent Act of 1793, if an inventor did not keep his invention secret, if a knowledge of it became public before his application for a patent, he could not obtain one. To be patentable, an invention must not have been known or used before the application ”

“ 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 ”

“ In our patent law, the inventor must file his specification before he can procure his patent. In England, the patent contains upon its face a condition that if the patentee shall not make and file a specification within a limited time after the date of the patent, then the patent, and all the liberties and advantages under it, shall cease and be void. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As the acts of Congress embrace only designs applied, or to be applied, they must refer to finished products of invention rather than to the process of finishing them, or to the agencies by which they are developed. A patent for a product is a distinct thing from a patent for the elements entering into it, or for the ingredients of which it is composed, or for the combination that causes it. ”

“ By filing a provisional specification, the applicant may secure protection for his invention for six months. The commissioners of patents are the lord chancellor and master of the rolls, the law officers of the crown for England, Scotland, and Ireland respectively, and such other persons as the queen may appoint. A marked difference between the English and American system is, that the former gives a patent to any person who first introduces an invention into the realm, without regard to who is the inventor or in what country the invention may have been patented. ”

“ When the nature of a patent right is considered it is difficult to see why this should be so. The inventor creates a new thing—an invention of utility—and the people, represented by the Federal Government, say to him in effect: "Disclose your invention to us in a patent so that we may know how to practice it, and we will agree to give you a monopoly for seventeen years, after which we shall be free to use it. ”

“ Power to grant letters patent is conferred by law upon the Commissioner of Patents, and when that power has been lawfully exercised, and a patent has been duly granted, it is of itself prim a facie evidence that the patentee is the original and first inventor of that which is therein described, and secured to him as his invention. ”

“ Hence, continued the court, a patent for an invention is a grant, and must have a grantor and a grantee. It must grant the franchise or monopoly to a person named, and who is capable of taking; and in this respect a patent does not differ from a patent or deed for lands. ”

“ I have some of those filters. The manufacturer of these things, who had no Patent, came to me to consult me upon the subject. I at once saw how the case stood, having regard to the specification of the Liverpool patentee, that he (the latter) had taken out a Patent for that which another man had before done, so exactly that the words of the specification and the drawings fitted the first man’s invention, which was without a Patent, therefore his Patent would have been null and void. ”

“ If so, the American patent expired with the foreign patent, and thereby the American public became entitled to use the invention from the time the foreign public were permitted to use it. Congress, in effect, by the existing law, says to an inventor seeking to enjoy the exclusive use in this country of his invention for the full term prescribed by law: 'If your invention has not been introduced into public use in the United States for more than two years, you may, upon complying with the conditions prescribed, obtain an American patent, and you may, if you can, obtain a foreign patent. ”

“ Patents for inventions, instruments which formerly bore the great seal of the United Kingdom, are now issued at the Patent Office in London under the seal of that office. By their means inventors obtain a monopoly in their inventions for fourteen years, a term which, if insufficient to remunerate the inventor, can be extended. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When chiefly ascribing the progress made by industry through technical improvements in many of the countries where extensive regulations of Patent-right are provided, to the incitement consequent upon the protection afforded by Patents, the fact is overlooked that the great inventions made in old times, as well as the scientific discoveries which in the modern era paved the way for industry, have perfectly done without any such incitements. ”

“ Is it the fact that Patents are taken out in this country for processes which are in operation abroad, but which have not been previously introduced into this country?—Certainly. A process in actual operation abroad, which has not been published in this country, can be made the subject of a Patent. ”

“ Effective support to the proposition that nothing but invention or discovery will entitle an applicant to a patent is also found in the reported decisions of the circuit courts, as appears from the following citations. Judge Story held, many years ago, that the mere application of an old process, machine, or device to a new use was not patentable,-that there must be some new process or some new machinery to produce the result, in order that the supposed inventor may properly have a patent for the alleged improvement. ”

“ For two centuries, the United States Patent Office has played a vital role in the scientific, technical, and economic development of our Nation by granting inventors patents for their inventions. As Abraham Lincoln once stated, patents "added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius." ”

“ Patents, whether basic or for improvements, must comply accurately and precisely with the statutory requirement as to claims of invention or discovery. The limits of a paen t must be known for the protection of the patentee, the encouragement of the inventive genius of others, and the assurance that the subject of the patent will be dedicated ultimately to the public. ”

“ When we consider that there are at the present moment 11,369 Patents in force, most of them as invalid as that to which I have referred, and acting as a restriction on manufacturers, we may form some idea of what the community at large has to pay for the luxury of a Patent-Law. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Above all, a process or operation, especially in a trade that already existed, does not appear to be contemplated by the statute. How entirely and sadly different is the present practice in this respect. Let me first quote from Brande’s Dictionary the opening definition that shows how naturally, and as it seems, unconsciously, writers speak of “processes,” as the great or only subject-matter:—
“The word Patent is commonly used to denote a privilege accorded to an inventor for the sole use of some process by which an object in demand may be supplied to the public ”

“ 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. ”

“ To understand accurately the scope of the Gray invention, it is necessary to consider some of the principal foreign patents, as well as the history of the Gray patent in the patent office, and the limitations which were imposed by it and accepted by him before the patent was granted. ”

“ Most processes which have been held to be patentable require the aid of mechanism in their practical application, but, where such mechanism is subsidiary to the chemical action, the fact that the patentee may be entitled to a patent upon his mechanism does not impair his right to a patent for the process, since he would lose the benefit of his real discovery, which might be applied in a dozen different ways, if he were not entitled to such patent. ”

“ We are not sure but that to make any Patent-Law tolerably just, special provision should be made for proof of simultaneous discovery, and either compensation to all the discoverers by the patentees, or full liberty to them to make use of their discovery. ”

“ And yet the great majority of patents are for improvements in old and well-known devices, or on patented inventions. Changes in the construction of an old machine which increase its usefulness are patentable. Seymour v. Osborne, 11 Wall. 516. So, a new combination of known devices, whereby the effectiveness of a machine is increased, may be the subject of a patent. ”

“ What was omitted from the first patent, because the inventor consented to abandon it, can never be lawfully brought in afterward by a reissue.
Several lawsuits have culminated in a group of decisions which, if they shall be sustained by the Supreme Court, will open the way to an efficient judicial remedy, whenever Government officers assume to use a patented invention. The English idea has long been that a patent is a monopoly or privilege which the Crown—though forbidden to grant monopolies as freely as might be done centuries ago—may give to a favored person. ”