DECISIONS RELATING TO PATENTS

by Scientific American December 15th, 2023

Too Long; Didn't Read

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. Reissued patent No. 5,774 to Shubael Cottle, February 24, 1874, for improvement in chains for necklaces, declared void, the first claim, if not for want of novelty, for want of patentability, and the second for want of novelty. Neither the tubing, nor the open spiral link formed of tubing, nor the process of making either the open or the closed link, nor the junction of closed and open spiral links in a chain, was invented by the patentee. All improvement is not invention and entitled to protection as such. Thus to entitle it it must be the product of some exercise of the inventive faculties, and it must involve something more than what is obvious to persons skilled in the art to which it relates.

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Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880, by Various, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. DECISIONS RELATING TO PATENTS.

DECISIONS RELATING TO PATENTS.

Supreme Court of the United States

PEARCE vs. MULFORD et al.

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

Reissued patent No. 5,774 to Shubael Cottle, February 24, 1874, for improvement in chains for necklaces, declared void, the first claim, if not for want of novelty, for want of patentability, and the second for want of novelty.
Neither the tubing, nor the open spiral link formed of tubing, nor the process of making either the open or the closed link, nor the junction of closed and open spiral links in a chain, was invented by the patentee.
All improvement is not invention and entitled to protection as such. Thus to entitle it it must be the product of some exercise of the inventive faculties, and it must involve something more than what is obvious to persons skilled in the art to which it relates.

The decree of the circuit court is therefore reversed, and it is ordered that the bill be dismissed.

By the Commissioner of Patents.

DICKSON vs. KINSMAN.—INTERFERENCE.—TELEPHONE.

The subject matter of the interference is defined in the preliminary declaration thereof as follows:

The combination in one instrument of a transmitting telephone and a receiving telephone, so arranged that when the mouthpiece of the speaking or transmitting telephone is applied to the mouth of a person, the orifice of the receiving telephone will be applied to his ear.

While it is true that the unsupported allegations of an inventor, that he conceived an invention at a certain date, are not sufficient to establish such fact, the testimony of a party that he constructed and used a device at a certain time is admissible.
Abandonment is an ill-favored finding, which cannot be presumed, but must be conclusively proven.

The decision of the Board of Examiners-in-Chief is reversed, and priority awarded to Dickson.

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