Reports of Cases Relating to Letters Patent for Inventions: Decided in the Courts of Law and Equity, and Before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Reports of Cases Relating to Letters Patent for Inventions: Decided in the Courts of Law and Equity, and Before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council

Watson, Hindmarch, and Price showed cause against the rule. There are two questions raised in this case. The first is, whether the specification of Harrison's patent is sufficient; and the second is, whether there is any evidence of an in fringement. As to the first question, it is contended for the defendants that, although this machine is new and useful, the plaintiff is not entitled to recover, because the patentee did not sufficiently describe his invention. That turns upon the con' struction to be put upon the specification, and it is submitted that it does not claim any of the parts of the patented article to be new, but it claims the whole in combination. The claim is not for the suspending rods, nor for the support, nor for the table, nor for the post, but it is a claim for an ar rangement of machinery constituting an improved turning table, and it is quite clear that a patent can be sustained for a new arrangement of machinery, of which all the parts are old as well as if all the parts were new; and in the present case the claim is for the whole in combination, whether the parts be old or new. We must not construe a Specification with the same strictness with which we would a pleading on a special demurrer. [jervis C. J. We are to look at it as a man with ordinary knowledge on the subject would read it] The title of the patent is, an improved turning table for railway purposes, and from the specification it appears that the object was to support the revolving plate or upper platform of the turning table, as also its braces, arms, and supports, on the top of a fixed post, well braced, and resting on or planted in the ground, and so to cause the weight to press entirely on the top of the fixed post, by which means the table would be kept always horizontal. Then we come to his claim, which is, I claim as my invention the improved turning table hereinbefore described, that is, I claim the combination by which the effect is produced; and if the claim is for a combination, there is no necessity to show what part of that combination is old and what new. [jervis C. J. The claim in this case does not necessarily limit the effect of the description contained in the specification.

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