Case ID: f_12/html/0223-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Mr. Chief Justice Waite\n    ", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Patents — Reissue—Abandonment of Invention.
    Guidet v. City of Brooklyn.
    Appeal from the circuit court of the United States for the eastern district of New York. The invention in this case covered by the reissue was for chamfered edges of tho broadsides of parallelopiped blocks of stone used in street pavements. The specification in the claim on the reissue is that if blocks are selected with their sides rough enough, joints can be made that will furnish a suitable foothold without the use of strips and without chamfering. The case was determined in the supremo court of the United States on
    April 17, 1882,
   Mr. Chief Justice Waite

delivering the opinion of tho court affirming the decree.

Where it was shown" that if stone were used with rougher side surfaces than those found in old pavements, and that all artificial means of keeping tho transverse joints open might be abandoned and the requisite surface secured, it was simply carrying forward an old idea, and doing what had been substantially done before, but with better results. Such a change is only in degree, and is not patentable.