Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/141/419/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 10:25:48+00:00

Document:
If a patentee describes and claims only a part of his invention, he is presumed to have abandoned the residue to the public.
Where a claim is fairly susceptible of two constructions, that one will be adopted which will preserve to the patentee his actual invention, but if the language of the specification and claim shows clearly what he desired to secure as a monopoly, nothing can be held to be an infringement which does not fall within the terms which the patentee has himself chosen to express his invention.
sweat pads for horse collars under letters patent No. 331,813, issued December 8, 1885.
Whether a variation from a previous state of an art involves anything more than ordinary mechanical skill is a question which cannot be answered by applying the test of any general definition.
The doctrine which prevails to some extent in England that the utility of a device is conclusively proven by the extent to which it has gone into general use cannot be applied here so as to control that language of the statute which limits the benefit of the patent laws to things which are new as well as useful.
In a doubtful case, the fact that a patented article has gone into general use is evidence of its utility, but not conclusive of that, and still less of its patentable novelty.
Letters patent No. 267,011, issued May 13, 1884, to McClain for a pad fastening are void for want of novelty in the alleged invention.
This was a bill in equity for the infringement of two letters patent granted to appellant, McClain, viz., patent No. 259,700, issued June 20, 1882, for a "pad for horse collars," and patent No. 267,011, issued November 7, 1882, for an improvement upon the same. Another patent, numbered 298,626, issued May 13, 1884, to J. Scherling for a "pad fastening," and assigned to the appellant, was originally included in the suit, but was abandoned upon the argument in this Court.
"to that class of horse collar pads which are placed between the collar and the horse's shoulders, and are adjustably attached to the collar, and known as 'sweat pads,' the object of the invention being"
"to produce a sweat pad for a horse collar which can be easily and readily attached to or taken from the collar, and which can be fitted to collars varying in size."
are adjacent to the withers of the neck, and are provided with elastic springs -- steel -- which are so made as to be capable of being opened and then clasped around the body of the sides of the collar. Thus, one end of a spring is so curved as to partly encircle the fore wale or small roll of the collar, and to hug it so closely as to keep out of the way of the hame, and the other end is so curved as to similarly partly encircle and hug the after wale or body side of the collar, and yet not interfere with the hame. Such construction will enable the pad to be easily and readily attached at its top ends to the top ends of the collar, and also will permit of attachment at variable positions along the sides of the collar, so that it can be easily fitted to collars of different sizes."
"1. As attachments to a sweat or other horse collar pad, the elastic springs, s s, substantially as described, and for the purposes set forth."
There was a second claim, which, however, became immaterial.
expense than a two-roll spring. First, it does not require so much material; second, it is easier to form, and may not require tempering, as the tempered steel in the market may answer where it has been found that such steel will not do for a two-roll spring; third, it is more convenient to attach by riveting by hand or by machinery, for riveting machinery now in use can be used on a single-roll spring, but not on a two-roll one, since the curved ends of the latter project over the rivets."
"1. As an attachment to a horse collar pad or other harness pad, and as a means of adjustably attaching a pad to a horse collar or other part of harness, the elastic single roll or single curved spring, S, constructed, arranged, attached, and operating substantially in the manner shown or described, and for or with the purposes set forth."
"2. The combination, with a horse collar pad, of elastic single roll or single curve spring, S, substantially in the manner shown or described, and for the purposes set forth."
"These defendants, on their own understanding of the scope and meaning of said several letters patent and on the advice of counsel in relation thereto, deny that they have ever in any way infringed upon the same or upon any of them or upon any claim thereof."
Plaintiff's bill was dismissed by the circuit court upon the ground that the first patent was not infringed and that the second patent, in view of the first and of the other devices offered in evidence, was void for want of novelty. The opinion of the court is reported in 33 F. 284.
"that is to say, sweat pads adapted to be fastened or secured to the collar by a simple hook, made of wire, arranged to clasp the front roll of the collar, but not in any way having or employing the pretended inventions and improvements described and claimed in said several letters patent, or either of them."
"its curved or hooked portion being so bent or formed as to clasp the outer or exposed part of the front roll of the collar, and so as to have a broad bearing thereon."
"To apply the pad to the collar, it is only necessary to arrange it underneath the collar in the usual manner, first raising the hooks, D D, and then pushing them downward, so that they will clasp the front roll of the collar."
"It is plain, therefore, that the defendant company, which does not make said bars at all [that is, wide and thin bars], but round or cylindrical bars, does not infringe this claim of the patent. When a claim is so explicit, the courts cannot alter or enlarge it. If the patentees have not claimed the whole of their invention and the omission has been the result of inadvertence, they should have sought to correct the error by a surrender of their patent and an application for a reissue. . . . But the courts have no right to enlarge a patent beyond the scope of its claim as allowed by the Patent Office, or the appellate tribunal, to which contested applications are referred. When the terms of a claim in a patent are clear and distinct, as they always should be, the patentee, in a suit brought upon the patent, is bound by it. He can claim nothing beyond it."
covers. If at one time he insists on too much and at another on too little, he does not thereby work any prejudice to the rights actually secured to him."
Other cases to the same effect are Merrill v. Yeomans, 94 U. S. 568; Burns v. Meyer, 100 U. S. 671, and Sutter v. Robinson, 119 U. S. 530.
It is true that in a case of doubt, where the claim is fairly susceptible of two constructions, that one will be adopted which will preserve to the patentee his actual invention; but if the language of the specification and claim shows clearly what he desired to secure as a monopoly, nothing can be held to be an infringement which does not fall within the terms the patentee has himself chosen to express his invention. The principle announced by this Court in Vance v. Campbell, 1 Black 427, that where a patentee declares upon a combination of elements which he asserts constitute the novelty of his invention, he cannot in his proofs abandon a part of such combination and maintain his claim to the rest, is applicable to a case of this kind, where a patentee has claimed more than is necessary to the successful working of his device.
Applying these familiar principles to the case under consideration, we are forced to the conclusion that the curved hook of the defendant is not an infringement of the double spring described in the plaintiff's specification and claim. While a single spring or hook embracing the fore wale of a collar may be equally as efficacious, the patentee is no more at liberty to say that the spring encircling the after wale is immaterial and useless than was the patentee in Vance v. Campbell to discard one of the elements of his combination upon the same ground. This was evidently the theory of the patentee himself, since, a little more than two months after this patent was issued, in a letter to the Patent Office of September 2, 1882, in which he made application for his second patent, covering the single-roll spring, he stated that "the single-roll spring must be conceded to be a structure positively and unequivocally different from the two-roll spring." There being no infringement of this patent, there can be no recovery upon it.
"this spring has but one curved portion, intended for the fore roll only of the collar, instead of a curved portion for the fore roll and one for the back roll."
It seems from his letter to the Patent Office of September 2, 1882, to which reference has already been made, that in endeavoring to practice the invention in his prior patent, he found that the two-roll spring was not generally applicable to collars of different sizes, as it had been supposed it would be, as the rolls in collars of different sizes and of different makes varied so much that while it would make a pad applicable to collars of different sizes for light work, the same pad could not be used on collars for heavy work, and hence the invention proved to be imperfect. This resulted in the invention of the single-roll spring of his second application.
or of something akin to genius, as distinguished from mere mechanical skill, draws one somewhat nearer to an appreciation of the true distinction, but it does not adequately express the idea. The truth is, the word cannot be defined in such manner as to afford any substantial aid in determining whether a particular device involves an exercise of the inventive faculty or not. In a given case, we may be able to say that there is present invention of a very high order. In another, we can see that there is lacking that impalpable something which distinguishes invention from simple mechanical skill. Courts, adopting fixed principles as a guide, have by a process of exclusion determined that certain variations in old devices do or do not involve invention, but whether the variation relied upon in a particular case is anything more than ordinary mechanical skill is a question which cannot be answered by applying the test of any general definition.
"where any man, by his own charge and industry or by his own wit or invention, doth bring any new trade into the realm or any engine tending to the furtherance of a trade that never was used before, . . . the King may grant to him a monopoly patent . . . in consideration of the good that he doth bring by his invention to the commonwealth,"
it was said: "The act [of monopolies] intended to encourage new devices useful to the kingdom, and whether learned by travel or by study it is the same thing."
It is evident that these principles have no application to the patent system of the United States, whose beneficence is strictly limited to the invention of what is new and useful, and that the English cases construing even their more recent acts must be received with some qualification. That the extent to which a patented device has gone into use is an unsafe criterion even of its actual utility is evident from the fact that the general introduction of manufactured articles is as often effected by extensive and judicious advertising, activity in putting the goods upon the market, and large commissions to dealers as by the intrinsic merit of the articles themselves. The popularity of a proprietary medicine, for instance, would be an unsafe criterion of its real value, since it is notorious fact that the extent to which such preparations are sold is very largely dependent upon the liberality with which they are advertised, and the attractive manner in which they are put up and exposed to the eye of the purchaser. If the generality of sales were made the test of patentability, it would result that a person, by securing a patent upon some trifling variation from previously known methods, might, by energy in pushing sales or by superiority in finishing or decorating his goods, drive competitors out of the market and secure a practical monopoly without in fact having made the slightest contribution of value to the useful arts. The very case under consideration is not barren of testimony that the great success of the McClain pads and clasping hooks -- a large demand for which seems to have arisen and increased year by year -- is due partly at least to the fact that he was the only one who made the manufacture of sweat pads a specialty; that he made them of a superior quality, advertised them in the most extensive and attractive manner, and adopted means of pushing them upon the market, and thereby largely increased the extent of their sales. Indeed it is impossible from this testimony to say how far the large sales of these pads is due to their superiority to others or to the energy with which they were forced upon the market.
While this Court has held in a number of cases, even so late as Magowan v. New York Belting & Packing Co., ante, 141 U. S. 332, decided at the present term, that in a doubtful case, the fact that a patented article had gone into general use is evidence of its utility, it is not conclusive even of that -- much less of its patentable novelty.
THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE GRAY did not hear the argument, and took no part in the decision of this case.

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.