Source: http://beikokupat.com/us-patent/number8/
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 14:16:18+00:00

Document:
Specification forming part of Letter Patent No. 1,647, dated June 20, 1840; Reissue No. 79, dated January 15, 1846; Reissue No. 117, dated June 13, 1848.
Patent Act of 1836, Ch. 357, 5 Stat. 117 (July 4, 1836), Sec. 6.
Morse, decided under the 1836 Act, can also be interpreted as involving a separate written description inquiry. 56 U.S. (15 How.) 62, 14 L.Ed. 601. The patent at issue contained eight claims, only seven of which recited the specific instrumentalities of the telegraph developed by Morse. The eighth claim, in contrast, claimed every conceivable way of printing intelligible characters at a distance by the use of an electric or galvanic current. Id. at 112. The Court rejected the latter claim as too broad because Morse claimed “an exclusive right to use a manner and process which he has not described and indeed had not invented, and therefore could not describe when he obtained his patent.” Id. at 113 (emphasis added). Such a rejection implies a distinct requirement for a description of the invention. Yet, in reaching its conclusion, the Court also detailed how the claim covered inventions not yet made, indicating the additional failure of the description to enable such a broad claim. See id. at 113–14.
Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Co., 598 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (en banc), additional views by NEWMAN, Circuit Judge.
The written description is the way by which the scientific/technologic information embodied in patented inventions is disseminated to the public, for addition to the body of knowledge and for use in further understanding and advance. See [Capon v. Eshhar, 418 F.3d 1349] at 1357 (“The written description requirement thus satisfies the policy premises of the law, whereby the inventor’s technical/scientific advance is added to the body of knowledge, as consideration for the grant of patent exclusivity.”). This accords with long-standing principles, as in the classical case of O’Reilly v. Morse, 56 U.S. (15 How.) 62, 14 L.Ed. 601 (1853), where the Court approved Samuel Morse’s claims based on the system of current boosters that achieved his long-distance communication called the telegraph, but denied his claims for this use of an electric current “however developed.” Id. at 113. As the court debates the relationship between “written description” and “enablement,” let us not lose sight of the purpose of Section 112.
Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Inc. v. Eli Lilly and Co., 598 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (en banc), dissenting-in-part and concurring-in-part opinion by LINN, Circuit Judge.
The majority also rests on O’Reilly v. Morse, 56 U.S. (15 How.) 62, 120, 14 L.Ed. 601 (1854), where the Supreme Court invalidated one of Samuel Morse’s telegraphy-related claims for claiming “what he has not described.” Maj. Op. at 1346 n.4. Lilly cites passages from Morse and highlights every instance of the words “description” or “described.” Lilly’s Br. 8. However, this places too much stock in these words and assumes that “describes” meant in 1854 what the majority would like it to mean today. Morse’s description was deficient because it did not enable the full scope of his broadest claim (to all possible electrical telegraphs), not because it failed the equivalent of a present-day “possession” test for written description.
The Halliburton device, alleged to infringe, employs an electric filter for this purpose. In this age of technological development there may be many other devices beyond our present information or indeed our imagination which will perform that function and yet fit these claims. And unless frightened from the course of experimentation by broad functional claims like these, inventive genius may evolve many more devices to accomplish the same purpose. See … O’Reilly et al. v. Morse et al., 15 How. 62, 112, 113, 14 L.Ed. 601. Yet if Walker’s blanket claims be valid, no device to clarify echo waves, now known or hereafter invented, whether the device be an actual equivalent of Walker’s ingredient or not, could be used in a combination such as this, during the life of Walker’s patent.

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