Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/263/50/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 16:44:18+00:00

Document:
1. Any practice of an inventor and applicant for patent through which he, deliberately and without excuse, postpones the beginning of the term of his monopoly, and thus puts off the free public enjoyment of the invention, is an evasion of the patent law and defeats its aim. P. 263 U. S. 55.
2. An inventor of projectiles for rifled cannon having obtained allowance of a patent from the Patent Office, procured the papers to be filed in the secret archives on a statement that he wished this for one year only as an aid in obtaining patent rights abroad, and thereafter, for nearly ten years, deliberately abstained from requesting issuance of his patent in order to postpone the beginning of the patent monopoly until the needs of the government for the invention should render it of pecuniary value to himself. Held that he forfeited his right to the patent, within the meaning of the special act of Congress authorizing this suit, and therefore compensation could not be recovered from the government even if it used the invention within the period defined by that statute. Act of March 2, 1901, 31 Stat. 1788. Pp. 263 U. S. 56, 263 U. S. 59.
Appeal from a judgment of the Court of Claims rejecting a claim preferred under a special act of Congress, for compensation for use by the government of an invention made by the plaintiffs' decedent.
"Provided, however, that the said court shall first be satisfied that the said Woodbridge did not forfeit or abandon his right to a patent by publication, delay, laches or otherwise, and that the said patent was wrongly refused to be issued by the Patent Office."
The Court of Claims heard the case, made findings of fact, and held that the petition must be dismissed on two grounds: first, that Woodbridge had forfeited or abandoned his right to a patent by his delay or laches, and second that the United States had not used his invention.
"applying to a projectile to be fired from a rifled gun a rifle, ring or sabot, in the manner hereafter described, for the purpose of giving to the projectile the rifle motion."
advised him that the use of sabots or rings of soft metal applied to iron balls was known for either smooth bore or rifled guns, but, after discussion, allowed him two claims, the first for a smooth ring for a smooth bore cannon and the second for a ring with exterior projections to fit into the rifled cannon for the purpose of diminishing windage, and giving the projectile a motion in direction of the axis of the bore.
"I was informed in answer to my inquiry that, upon the issue, or order to issue, of a patent, it may be filed in the secret archives of your office (at the risk of the patentee) for such time as he may desire. I wish to avail myself of this privilege when my patent may issue in order that my ability to take out a patent in a foreign country may not be affected by the publication of the invention. If it is necessary to specify a particular time during which the patent shall remain in the secret archives, you will please consider one year as the time designated by me."
filed in the secret archives of the office until he shall furnish the model and the patent be issued, not exceeding the term of one year, the applicant being entitled to notice of interfering applications."
"I have allowed it to remain until the present time, it being only lately that any immediate opportunity of rendering it pecuniarily available has occurred."
"The reason of said Woodbridge for his delay in requesting issue of the patent allowed him was, as stated by him in communications to the Patent Office, that he thought that course best fitted to enable him to avail himself of the value of the patent, as, by procuring delay in the issue of the patent, the wants of the government might demand the invention before the patent should expire, and that, as the invention could be made available only by the necessities and action of the government, he thought the intent of the law that the inventor should have 14 years' exclusive use of his invention could in no other way be so well attained in the case of this particular invention 'as by deferring the issue of the patent to a time when it could be brought into practical use.'"
the Patent Office replied that the patent would be ordered to issue, but that the defects in his specifications could only be cured by a reissue. On January 29th, before a month had elapsed, the Patent Office wrote Woodbridge another letter, in answer to his letter of December 31, 1861, in which he was informed that the length of time he had allowed his invention to slumber was a bar to the issue of a patent; that for nearly 10 years he had suffered his application to remain locked up, not merely beyond the reach of the public, but beyond even the cognizance of the examiners and other officers of the department; that meantime, many patents had issued for the same invention, and yet his only reason for his delay and silence was that he supposed the invention would not prove remunerative until recently. The application was rejected on the ground of abandonment. On April 15, 1862, Woodbridge appealed to the Board of Examiners in Chief, and on July 10, 1862, that board affirmed the action of the examiner. Nothing was done by Woodbridge after this until January 7, 1871, when he appealed to the Commissioner of Patents. A day was set for the hearing. Woodbridge did not get the notice. Another day was set. The Commissioner had to postpone it, and told Woodbridge he would give him another date. Nothing was done by anybody till January, 1879, when, on Woodbridge's application, the case was heard and the Commissioner affirmed the decision by the subordinate tribunals that the facts amounted to abandonment. Woodbridge appealed to the Supreme Court of the District, which affirmed the Commissioner on February 28, 1880.
with all the devices used by the United States shown in patents subsequent to Woodbridge which it is found the United States did use, the question of nonuser is really a question of law which should be reviewed here.
The judgment of the Court of Claims was chiefly based on the conclusion of law from the facts found that Woodbridge had forfeited or abandoned his right to a patent by his delay and laches. The court also held that the claims of Woodbridge did not cover the devices the United States used.
and vend it or its product or to permit others to do so, for profit. The importance in working out the purpose of Congress of keeping the inventor's monopoly within the term for which the patent is granted is thus shown to be capital. Any practice by the inventor and applicant for a patent through which he deliberately and without excuse postpones beyond the date of the actual invention, the beginning of the term of his monopoly, and thus puts off the free public enjoyment of the useful invention, is an evasion of the statute, and defeats its benevolent aim.
"the unquestionable right of every inventor to confer gratuitously the benefits of his ingenuity upon the public, and this he may do either by express declaration or by conduct equally significant with language -- such, for instance, as an acquiescence with full knowledge in the use of his invention by others; or he may forfeit his rights as an inventor by a willful or negligent postponement of his claims, or by an attempt to withhold the benefit of his improvement from the public until a similar or the same improvement should have been made and introduced by others."
In the case before us, we have the feature last alluded to. Many inventors were at work in the same field, and had made advances in the art, and the government had used them. When Woodbridge conceived that the time for him had come to assert his monopoly, he became aware of the fact that, in his specifications and claims, as allowed, he had not covered the real advance made by his unconscious competitors, and that was the use in a rifled gun of a ring or sabot without projections to fit into the rifling of the bore, which, because of the softness of the metal of the ring under the heat and pressure, would do so without projections, and so, 9 1/2 years after his patent had been allowed, but not issued, he applied for a change of specifications and claims so that he might cover the patents of these subsequent inventors.
and procured a patent in 1862, his term would have ended in 1879. Part of this unconscionable postponement of the end of his monopoly was due to the change of law in 1861, but nearly 10 years, as already said, was the result of his deliberate design.
No case cited to us presents exactly these facts, but the general principles upon which this Court has proceeded in cases of abandonment by conduct and its views of the rights of the public, and the purpose of the constitutional authority to grant patents and of Congress in its legislative execution of that purpose set forth in those cases leave no doubt of the conclusion we must reach. Pennock v. Dialogue, 2 Pet. 1; Wyeth v. Stone, 1 Story 273, 282; Show v. Cooper, 7 Pet. 292; Kendall v. Winsor, 21 How. 322, 62 U. S. 329; Planing-Machine Co. v. Keith, 101 U. S. 479, 101 U. S. 485; United States Rifle & Cartridge Co. v. Whitney Arms Co., 118 U. S. 22, 118 U. S. 25.
Of course, the conclusion that patents have been abandoned by conduct in such cases are reached by inference that the delay and other circumstances indicated an intention to give up effort to secure a patent. The circumstances usually relied on to show abandonment are a rejection of an application for a patent by the Patent Office and unexplained delay in prosecuting appeal from one of the several executive tribunals to another provided in the procedure of obtaining a patent. From these, intent to abandon is presumed. It is urged that such authorities have no application, because intent to abandon cannot be inferred from the delay in this case. That is true, but our conclusion rests not on neglect and intention to give up the patent, but on a deliberate and unlawful purpose to postpone the term of the patent the inventor always intended to secure.
Electric Co., 246 F. 695. There, an inventor of a process for making glass used it in secret for nearly 10 years, selling the product. At the end of that time, when the secret was betrayed by an employee, the inventor applied for a patent. It was held by the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Sixth Circuit, in a most satisfactory opinion by Judge Warrington, that the policy of the patent law to secure to the public the full benefit of inventions after expiration of the fixed term deemed sufficient reasonably to stimulate invention would be defeated if an inventor could withhold his invention from the public for an indefinite time for his own profit, and that the right to preserve a monopoly in an invention by keeping it a trade secret and the right to secure its protection under the patent laws were inconsistent, and could not both be exercised by an inventor. The gist of the reason for the conclusion there was the same as here -- that the purpose and result of the conduct of the inventor were unduly to postpone the time when the public could enjoy the free use of the invention.
"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 meantime has made the invention, and secured by patent the exclusive right to make, use, and vend the patented improvement. Within that rule and subject to that condition, inventors may delay to apply for a patent."
"Unless inventors keep their inventions secret, they are required to be vigilant in securing patents for their protection. "
"This doubtless is a correct general proposition, but, like all general propositions, it may have its exceptions under special and particular circumstances, even where the intervening rights of third parties have not been secured by patent."
"The patent laws are founded in a large public policy to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. The public therefore is a most material party to, and should be duly considered in, every application for a patent, securing to the individual a monopoly for a limited time, in consideration for the exercise of his genius and skill. But the arts and sciences will certainly not be promoted by giving encouragement to inventors to withhold and conceal their inventions for an indefinite time, or to a time when they may use and apply their inventions to their own exclusive advantage, irrespective of the public benefit, and certainly not if the inventor is allowed to conceal his invention to be brought forward in some after time to thwart and defeat a more diligent and active inventor, who has placed the benefit of his invention within the reach and knowledge of the public."
the same Justice while sitting on the circuit in Jones v. Sewall, 3 Cliff. 563, 592, 593, Fed.Cas. No. 7,495, where, in distinguishing between the intent to be inferred from experimental practice of an invention and practice for gain, he said:"
" Such an inference [of intention to surrender the invention to the public] is never favored, nor will it in general be sufficient to prove such a defense, unless it appears that the use, exercise, or practice of the invention was somewhat extensive, and for the purpose of gain, evincing an intent on the part of the inventor to secure the exclusive benefits of his invention without applying for the protection of letters patent."
We concur in these explanations and qualifications of Mr. Justice Clifford's general remarks in Bates v. Coe, and for the reasons given. They certainly should not be construed to militate against our conclusion in this case and the reasons upon which it is founded.
of the Court was chiefly directed to the issue whether as a fact the delay was due to the design of the owner of the invention or to circumstances over which it had no control, including the rules of the Patent Office, the delays of the examiners, and the peculiar situation as to applications for patents in that active field of invention. The Court found this issue against the government and in favor of the patentee, whose patent the government was attempting to cancel for this fraud and could only cancel by clear and convincing proof. In the case at bar, the design of the inventor is disclosed by his own avowal, and his plan of nonaction was not in accord with the rules of procedure in the Patent Office, but was in plain violation of the statutory law.
The conclusion that Woodbridge forfeited his right to a patent by his delay in taking it from 1852 to 1862 makes it unnecessary for us to consider whether he abandoned it by his wholly unexplained delay of 9 more years in prosecuting his appeal from the decision of the Board of Examiners in July, 1862, to the Commissioner of Patents until January, 1871. It also relieves us from going into the question whether the government's use of subsequent patents for improvements in adjusting projectiles for firing from cannon embraced the invention of Woodbridge as contained in his specifications and claims allowed in 1852.

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