Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/137/258/
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 07:02:39+00:00

Document:
A reissue of letters patent is an amendment, and cannot be allowed to enlarge the claims of the original by including matter once intentionally omitted.
Such intentional omission may be shown by conduct, and the inventor cannot be permitted to treat deliberate and long continued acts of his attorney as other than his own.
In this case, there is no room for the contention that there was any inadvertence, accident, or mistake attending the issue of the original patent, and the reissue was correctly held to be invalid.
In equity for the infringement of letters patent. Decree dismissing the bill. Plaintiffs appealed. The case is stated in the opinion.
This was a bill exhibited by John Dobson, James Dobson, and James Greaves against James Lees and others for infringement of reissued letters patent No. 10,054, Division A, dated March 7, 1882, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and, upon hearing on pleadings and proofs, dismissed by the court. The opinion will be found reported in 30 F. 625.
"The object of my invention is to furnish the condensing cylinders of carding engines with spindles of a more durable character than those in common use, and this object I attain by making such spindles of cast iron instead of wrought iron or steel. . . . It is not essential that the spindle, when it passes through the wheel, should in all cases be round. It may, for instance, be square, in which case the feather may be dispensed with."
"The combination, substantially as described, of the condensing cylinder of a carding engine, the driving wheel A, the hub of which has a square or angular aperture, and the spindle X, having a corresponding shape imparted to that portion of it which slides through the said hub, all as set forth."
"1st. The combination, in a carding engine, of a condensing or rubber cylinder, a driving wheel, and a polygonally shaped horizontal shaft or spindle, the latter being adapted to be revolved, and at the same time to be continuously reciprocated in a correspondingly polygonally shaped bearing and a continuously reciprocating rubber, substantially as and for the purposes described."
"2d. In a carding engine, the combination of a continuously reciprocating rubber, a driving wheel to turn said rubber, and a horizontal shaft or spindle connecting the two together, said shaft or spindle, and the bearing in which it reciprocates, being both made of cast iron, or both of metal having the same crystalline structure, whereby, in the reciprocating action, the tendency of the crystalline particles of cast metal in the bearing to wear the spindle will be resisted by the crystalline particles of the latter, substantially as and for the purposes described."
ground that its nonpatentability was res adjudicata so far as the examiner was concerned, and that the second claim was rejected because the substitution of the cast metal shaft for the wrought metal or steel shaft, before employed, required no invention. The examiners in chief, on the 15th of December, reversed the examiner's decision as to the second claim, but affirmed it as to the first, holding, however, that if the first claim were amended so as to include "cast iron or metal of the same crystalline structure" for bearing and spindle, they thought it would be admissible. The first claim was accordingly amended by the insertion, after the word "bearing," of the words "said bearing and said shaft or spindle being of cast iron or of metal of the same crystalline structure."
"as cast brass has not the same crystalline structure as cast iron, the application of Greaves, if so amended in its claims as to restrict him to the use of metal having the same crystalline structure 'as cast iron,' will not interfere with an application showing and describing 'cast brass,' if the material is of the essence of the invention."
Applicant accordingly so amended, February 9, the interference was dissolved February 10, and the patent was issued February 20, 1877.
horizontal shaft or spindle, the latter being adapted to be revolved and at the same time to be continuously reciprocated in a correspondingly polygonally shaped bearing, said bearing and said shaft or spindle being of cast iron or of metal of the same crystalline structure as cast iron, and a continuously reciprocating rubber, substantially as and for the purposes described."
"2. In a carding engine, the combination of a continuously reciprocating rubber, a driving wheel to turn said rubber, and a horizontal shaft or spindle connecting the two together, said shaft or spindle, and the bearing in which it reciprocates, being both made of cast iron, or both of metal having the same crystalline structure as cast iron, whereby in the reciprocating action the tendency of the crystalline particles of cast metal in the bearing to wear the spindle will be resisted by the crystalline particles of the latter, substantially as and for the purposes described."
Applications were then filed for a reissue in two divisions, A and B -- for Division A on March 24, 1877, and for Division B on March 15, 1877.
Division B contained both of the claims of the original patent, and reissued letters patent No. 9,477 were granted therefor under date of November 23, 1880.
"In a carding engine, a condensing or rubber cylinder mounted on a polygonally shaped horizontal shaft, in combination with a driving gear, A, having a sleeve-shaped bearing, b, said shaft and cylinder being adapted to be revolved by the drive wheel, A, and at the same time to be rapidly and continuously reciprocated by suitable mechanism, substantially as and for the purposes described."
"with instructions to consider whether or not, in view of certain recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, the same, in its present form, can properly be allowed."
"said applicant having withdrawn a similar claim in his original application in order to obtain his original patent, and the present claim being for a different invention from that covered by the original patent."
"In the first place, this claim, being for a combination of parts of peculiar construction, while the original is for a combination of parts when some of the same are constructed of particular metals, the metals being the gist of the claim thereof, is for a different invention from that covered by the original patent. In the second place, the claim now in controversy having been withdrawn from the application upon which the original patent was granted with a full knowledge of all the facts in the case, it cannot be urged that such withdrawal of the claim, or any other change that the appellant now desires to make, was the result of or necessitated by any inadvertence, accident, or mistake, for which alone corrections by reissue can be made."
The letter of allowance bears date February 15, 1882.
to its acceptance by the latter, the patentee must be regarded as bound by the acts of his counsel, and that, under the circumstances, the case fell clearly within Leggett v. Avery, 101 U. S. 256.
letters can be sustained in any case where they contain claims that have once been formally disclaimed by the patentee, or rejected with his acquiescence, and he has consented to such rejection in order to obtain his letters patent. Under such circumstances, the rejection of the claim can in no just sense be regarded as a matter of inadvertence or mistake. Even though it were such, the applicant should seem to be estopped from setting it up on an application for a reissue."
See also Manufacturing Co. v. Ladd, 102 U. S. 408.
A reissue is an amendment, and cannot to allowed unless the imperfections in the original patent arose without fraud, and from inadvertence, accident, or mistake. Rev.Stat. § 4916. Hence the reissue cannot be permitted to enlarge the claims of the original patent by including matter once intentionally omitted. Acquiescence in the rejection of a claim, its withdrawal by amendment, either to save the application or to escape an interference, the acceptance of a patent containing limitations imposed by the Patent Office, which narrow the scope of the invention as at first described and claimed, are instances of such omission. Union Metallic Cartridge Co. v. United States Cartridge Co., 112 U. S. 624; Shepard v. Carrigan, 116 U. S. 593; Roemer v. Peddie, 132 U. S. 313; Yale Lock Co. v. Berkshire Bank, 135 U. S. 342, 135 U. S. 379, and cases cited.
but negligence or inadvertence on the part of the solicitors employed.

References: v. 
 v. 
 § 4916
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.