Court Opinion

ID: 8630322
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-24 19:36:36.544844+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:55:44.770342
License: Public Domain

Judge HOPKINSON
delivered the following charge to the jury:
The issue you are now trying, is made under the provisions of the tenth section of the act of 21st February, 1793. The question is on the repeal of the patent granted to the defendant; you will observe that a patent may also be annulled under the sixth section of this act. By the .terms of that section, if the specification of the patentee does not contain the whole truth relative to his discovery; or contains more than is necessary, for the purpose of deceiving the public; or if it was not originally discovered by the patentee; or he had surreptitiously obtained a patent for the discovery of another person, judgment shall be rendered for the defendant, and the patent shall be declared void. Under the tenth section, the patent will also be repealed, if the pat-entee was not the true inventor of the thing; or had obtained the patent surreptitiously. These sections, however, are essentially different in their objects and provisions. The sixth section declares the defences that shall be available for a party against whom a patentee has brought suit for the invasion of his right; but no process or means are given for the examination of a patent right, however false and fraudulent it may be, if the patentee will be content to forbear to bring a suit against those who use it He may thus avoid all examination of his right, and he may go on imposing upon the ignorant or timid, and lay his unjust contributions upon them. A case is recorded of a patent for using the common stone coal in a common blacksmith’s forge. The patentee went through the country exhibiting his parchment patent with the great seal of the department of state, and the signatures of the high officers of government appended to it This would naturally alarm an ignorant smith, and as the patentee would sell him a right for two or three dollars, or for whatever he could get for it, a prudent man would prefer paying so small a sum, rather than go to law with an adversary apparently so well armed. To protect the public from such impositions, this tenth section was enacted, and gives the power to any person, interested or not in the discovery or the patent, to call upon the patentee for an examination of his right, and have it repealed, if it shall be found that he is not entitled to it. This proceeding, however, must be instituted -within three years; for if the public acquiesces for that period in the claim of the patentee, it shall only be questioned by one against whom a suit is brought for a violation of it, when the defendant will always have the benefit of the defence provided for him by the sixth section of the act
With this explanation of these sections of the patent act, you will inquire whether the specifications contained in Scott’s patent, or any of them, are substantially the same with those used in Delano’s chests, or in any other chest, French, English or German, antecedent to Scott’s patent, and to his claim of invention. I say “substantially,” for a difference in the manner or form of applying the invention. if it be the same principle, will not justify Scott’s patent. I have also said, “or any of them,” for the petition and oath claim all and each of them; and if there be a false suggestion in a material fact, the patent is invalid. So, on another settled principle of law, he must not patent more than his invention, or all is invalid. If you shall think that all or any of Scott’s specifications were used before by Delano, or any other person,-his patent can give him no title to them.
But you have to inquire into another question here. Did the defendant obtain his patent “suiTeptitiously or upon a false suggestion?” If he knew that Delano, or any other person, had previously used his pretended inventions, he certainly obtained his patent by falsely suggesting that he was the inventor. An important question on the construction of this section of the act here presents itself: whether the mere fact that the allegation or suggestion of the patentee was false; that is, that in truth he was not the inventor, when he alleged that ho was: will be sufficient to warrant a verdict and judgment against him, *383repealing his patent in this proceeding: or,, whether the complainant must not go further, -and show that the defendant knew that he was not the inventor, and of course knew that his allegation was false, and therefore wilfully deceived the government and the public in obtaining the patent. When the application in this case w.as made to me, in March, 1834, for a rule upon the defendant to show cause why process should not issue to repeal his patent, the question now proposed was not much attended to. The argument was more on the mode of proceeding than the merits of the case. In the opinion I then ■said, that I considered it to be the settled construction of this section “that the proceeding given by it to procure the repeal of the patent, applies only to cases in which the patent has been obtained by fraud, surreptitiously, by false suggestions, by some wilful misrepresentation and deception. The mere fact that the patentee was not the original inventor of the thing patented, is not such a false suggestion as is contemplated by the act, (although there are some words in it which seem to fa-vour that construction.) provided that the pat-entee, bona fide, believed himself to be the true inventor, when he applied for and received his patent, and did not know of any antecedent nse and invention of the thing claimed by him. There must be an intended deception and fraud upon the government and the public; a wilful wrong to the true inventor.” On a further consideration .of the subject, I am led to doubt the correctness of this opinion; indeed, it is but one of several ■difficulties which occur, in reconciling the different parts and provisions of this law. The first part of the section unequivocally requires that the oath or affirmation, which is the commencement of the proceeding, the very foundation of the complaint, shall affirm that the patent “was obtained surreptitiously or upon false suggestions.” If I were left to give a meaning to these words alone, with nothing more in the act to show the intention of the legislature, I should adhere to the opinion that the falsehood alluded to was a known •and wilful untruth, the fraud a surreptitious application, a designed and wilful deception. But when the process has been issued on this •affidavit, and the parties appear here, the one to maintain his complaint as set forth in the affidavit, and the other to defend himself against that complaint, which is, that he obtained his patent surreptitiously or by false suggestion, we find the ground of inquiry ■much widened, and this court is directed to render a judgment for the repeal of the patent, “in case no sufficient cause shall be shown to the contrary, or if it shall appear that the patentee was not the true inventor or discoverer.” The manner of obtaining the patent, whether by fraud and falsehood, whether bona fide or surreptitiously, is left out of the case, and it is your duty and mine to repeal the patent on the grounds I have mentioned. While this obscurity in the law has brought me to doubt the construction I formerly gave to it, I shall nevertheless instruct you, in your consideration of this case, to take the law to be as I held it on the application for this process. I must presume that the defendant has prepared his defence on the law as I then laid it down, and it would be unjust to place him on a worse footing now. He shall have the benefit of my mistake, if it was one, and the other party will have the opportunity, should it be necessary, to have the question more deliberately argued and decided, by this or another court. For the purposes of this trial you will hold it to be necessary, to justify a verdict against the defendant, that when he applied for and took his patent, he knew that the things, or some of them, that he claimed as his inventions, had been used before, and were not his discoveries.
Knowledge, then, being necessary to bring the defendant under the penalty of this section of the act, we must inquire what the knowledge is that will be sufficient for his condemnation. The complainant, in the first place, insists upon the legal or presumptive knowledge arising from the record of Delano's patent, long before that obtained by the defendant. The record of Delano’s patent and its specification could be no notice of his discoveries to Scott, unless there is a substantial identity between the specifications of the two patents. This you will decide. You have them both, and have heard the elaborate arguments of the counsel of the respective parties, affirming and denying this identity. If you shall be satisfied that sueli identity does exist between the two specifications of Delano and Scott, the question then occurs, whether the record of Delano's patent in the office of the department of state, was such a notice to Scott of that patent and its specifications, as will bring him within the provisions of the tenth section of the patent law? Is it such a knowledge or notice as will render his suggestion or allegation that he was the inventor, surreptitious and false, according to the construction I have given to that section? Must actual knowledge be brought home to him of a previous use or patent of the same inventions; or will a legal construction or presumptive knowledge be sufficient? With the interpretation I have adopted of this section of the act, a constructive notice of a preceding patent will not be sufficient for the condemnation of the defendant; to fix the charge of actual falsehood and fraud upon him, actual knowledge must be proved. It is not like the case of a disputed right to property between two purchasers, where, if the first buyer has put his deed on record, he has given all the notice of his title the law requires, and a subsequent purchaser who neglects to make the inquiry at the proper place, will buy at his peril. The case of Odiorne v. Winkley [Case No. 10,432] was a suit brought under the sixth section of the act for the invasion of a patent *384right It is probable, however, that you will make up your opinion respecting the knowledge that Scott had of Delano’s inventions from the direct evidence in the cause. • It is certain that Scott knew Delano had a patent for improvements in making iron chests, and being about to get a patent himself for the same object, you will judge whether it is not to be presumed that he did inquire, at the patent office, what the improvements of Delano were. In addition to this reasonable presumption, much stronger than the ordinary constructive notice afforded by a recorded instrument, you have evidence that Scott came to Delano’s shop as a common smith, having never before been engaged in malting iron chests, nor, as far as we know, having ever seen one made; and that, if you are satisfied of the identity of the improvements claimed, the chests of Scott are the same with those he saw made, and assisted in making, in Delano’s shop. If this evidence is relied upon, it brings home to Scott the full knowledge of Delano’s improvements, and, of course, when he obtained a patent for them for himself, he did it surreptitiously and by false suggestion. (The-judge then recapitulated to the jury the prominent parts of the testimony, to show the actual knowledge of the defendant, that the improvements he has patented, were those previously patented by Delano, and that he obtained his knowledge of them in Delano’s shop.)
The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff.