page_title: Egbert v. Lippmann
section_title: Majority opinion
hierarchical_section_title: Egbert v. Lippmann / Ruling of Supreme Court / Majority opinion
caption_attribution_description: English: William Burnham Woods
context_page_description: Egbert v. Lippmann, 104 U.S. 333, was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that public use of an invention bars the patenting of it. The Court's ruling was colored by its view that the inventor had forfeited his right to patent the invention by "sleeping on his rights" while others commercialized the technology.
context_section_description: Justice William Burnham Woods wrote for the majority, explaining that public use of the invention by only one person is sufficient to be considered a public use, even where the usage of the invention is not visible to the general public.  Similarly, a gift to another party without regard to secrecy or restrictions on use is sufficient to bar a patent for the same reason. Whether the use of an invention is public use or private use "does not necessarily depend on the number of persons to whom its use is known."
  Rather: "If an inventor, having made his device, gives or sells it to another, to be used by the donee or vendee without limitation or restriction or injunction of secrecy and it is so used, such use is public even though the use and knowledge of the use may be confined to one person." It is a public use because "[s}he might have exhibited them to any person, or made other steels of the same kind and used or sold them without violating any condition or restriction imposed on her by the inventor." Thus, the Court treated Barnes's gift of the corset steels to his "intimate friend" (not then his wife) without her first signing a confidentiality agreement as if it were a sale in the ordinary course of business. 
  The majority held that the use here was different from that in City of Elizabeth v. Pavement Company because this was not a good faith effort to test or experiment with the design. Furthermore, Barnes “slept on his rights” for the eleven years between 1855 and 1866, not applying for a patent until other manufacturers had already incorporated aspects similar to Barnes’ design into their own products. He did not bother applying for a patent until he came to the belated realization that he could potentially profit from his invention.  Thefore, the court held the patent invalid.
caption: Justice William Burnham Woods
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