The false sug of consideration, grant. purpose equally well, the patent is void, because he does not put the public in possession of his invention, or enable them to derive the same benefit which he himself does. As to the first objection which has been taken with respect to the minium, it was not pretended by any of the plaintiff's witnesses that he ever made use of minium. And it was proved by the defendant's witnesses, that from the specification they should be led to use minium, because minium is lead already calcined, which is what the specification directs in the first instance. But minium will not answer the purpose. Then as to fusion: it is said that the public are directed by the words of the specification, to continue the heat till the effect is produced, which must necessarily lead to fusion, though fusion is not expressly mentioned. But that is no answer to the objection; for the specification should have shown by what degree of heat the effect was to be produced. Now it does not mention fusion, and as one of the witnesses said, in order to produce the effect "you must go out of the patent;" for fusion is beyond calcination, and, in some sense, contrary to it; and by mentioning calcination, it should seem that fusion was to be avoided. The next objection was as to the salts: "fossil salt" is mentioned as a distinct species of salt, and many other salts are also mentioned, as indifferent whether one or the other be used. But it was proved that fossil salt was a generic term, including several species; and that "sal gem" was the only species of it which would answer the purpose, because none of the others contained a marine acid, which was essential. There was no contradiction by the witnesses on the third objection; for the most that the plaintiff's witnesses said was that, following the specification, the experiment only produced a white substance like lead. Now on either of these grounds the patent is void. Because, gestion or failure if the patentee says that by one process he can produce three is the ground of things, and he fails in any one, the consideration of his merit, avoiding the and for which the patent was granted, fails, and the crown has been deceived in the grant. Slight defects in the specification will be sufficient to vacate the patent. In a case before Lord Mansfield (ante 53) for infringing a patent for steel trusses, it appeared that the patentee, in tempering the steel, rubbed it with tallow, which was of some use in the operation; and because this was omitted, the specification was held to be insufficient, and the patent was avoided. Rule absolute for a new trial. It appears from the preamble of the act for the extension of the term of the patent (post 84), that the plaintiff succeeded on the second trial. The principles laid down in the preceding have been recognised in many subsequent cases. Wood v. Zimmer. In this action to try the validity of Zinck's patent for "a method of making verdigris," it appeared that the method described in the specification was sufficient to make the verdigris; but that Gibbs, C.J.: It is said that the method described makes verdigris, and that the specification is, therefore, sufficient. The law is not so: a man who applies for a patent and possesses a mode of carrying on that invention in the most beneficial manner, must disclose the means of producing it in equal perfection, and with as little expense and labour, as it costs the inventor himself. The price that he pays for his patent is, that he will enable the public, at the expiration of his privilege, to make it in the same way, and with the same advantages. If any thing that gives an advantageous operation to the thing invented be concealed, the specification is void. Now, though the specification should enable a person to make verdigris substantially as good without aqua fortis as with it, still, inasmuch as it would be made with more labour by the omission of aqua fortis, it is a prejudicial concealment, and a breach of the terms which the patentee makes with the public. Holt N.P. 60. Savory v. Price. It was The plaintiff had a patent "for a method of making a neutral salt or powder possessing all the properties of the medicinal spring at Seidlitz, under the name of Seidlitz Powder." The specification gives three distinct recipes for preparing the ingredients, and then directs two scruples of each of the three ingredients, resulting from those recipes, to be dissolved in half a pint of water, in order to produce the imitation of Seidlitz water. proved that by following the directions given in the specification, the result was obtained, and that it was new and useful. It appears that the three recipes were only common processes for preparing three well-known substances, viz. Rochelle salts, carbonate of soda, and tartaric acid, which were sold in shops before the date of the patent; and those three substances being used as directed, constituted the patent Seidlitz powder; the specification did not give any name to the ingredients resulting from the three recipes; but gave those recipes without comment, as if they were part of the method of making the Seidlitz powder. Abbott, C.J.: It is the duty of a patentee to specify the plainest and most easy way of producing that for which the patent is granted, and to make the public acquainted with the mode which he himself adopts. By reading this specification, we are led to suppose a laborious process necessary to the production of the ingredients, when in fact we might go to any chemist's shop and buy the same things ready-made. The public are misled by this specification, which tends to make people believe that an elaborate process is essential to the invention; it cannot be supported. · - Plaintiff nonsuited. Ry. & M. 1. Crompton v. Ibbotson. The plaintiff's patent was for "an improved method of dying and finishing paper," and the specification described the invention to consist in conducting paper by means of cloth or cloths against a heated cylinder, and contained the following words, "which cloth may be made of any suitable material; but I prefer it to be made of linen warp and woollen weft." The patentee knowing from repeated trials that no other substance would do. Lord Tenterden, C. J.: Other persons, misled by the terms of this specification, may be induced to make experiments which the patentee knows must fail; and the public, therefore, has not the full and certain benefit of the invention.-Rule for nonsuit absolute. Dan. & L. 33. Sturtz v. De la Rue. Lord Lyndhurst, L. C.: It is a principle of patent law, that there must be the utmost good faith in the specification. It must describe the invention in such a way, that a person of ordinary skill in the trade shall be able to carry on the process. Here the specification says, that there is the to be added to the size certain proportions of finest and purest chemical white lead." A workman would naturally go to a chemist's shop, and ask for "the finest and purest chemical white lead;" the answer which he would receive would be, that there was no substance known in the trade by that name. He would be compelled to ask for the purest and finest white lead; and, according to the evidence, the purest and finest white lead that can be procured in London will not answer the purpose. It is said that there is a substance prepared on the continent, which is white lead, or some preparation of white lead; and that, by using it in the manner described in the specification, the desired effect is produced. If that be so, the patentee ought to have directed the attention of the public to that circumstance. He ought to have said, "the purest white lead which can be obtained in the shops in London will not do; but there is a purer white lead, prepared on the continent, and imported into this country, which alone must be used." "The purest and finest chemical white lead," must mean the finest and purest white lead usually gotten in the general market for that commodity, unless the public be put on their guard by a statement, that what would be called very fine and pure white lead, in the ordinary sense of the trade, will not answer, but that the white lead used must be of a superlatively pure and fine quality, prepared in a particular way, and to be gotten only in a particular place. If the article is not made in this country, but may be imported, it would be necessary to mention that circumstance. It is said that the description in the specification will be sufficient, if the substance is known in the trade by the name of "the purest and finest white lead," or "the purest and finest chemical white lead." But it does not appear that there is any substance generally known in the trade by that denomination. It is alleged that the substance can be purchased at the shops in London, and two are specified. In point of fact, it has been purchased only at one of those shops, and they are not chemist's shops, but colour shops. It appears to me that this specification does not give that degree of full and precise information which the public have a right to require. In this state of the evidence, therefore, the injunction cannot be sustained. 5 Russ. 327. The patentee must not only give the best information according to his knowledge at the time of his patent, but communicate any thing which he may have acquired in the interim allowed for specifying. Crossley v. Beverley. See further Neilson v. Harford. Act, A. D. 1792. 32 G. 3, c. 73. An Act for vesting in James Turner, his, &c. the sole use and property of a certain yellow colour of his invention. After reciting the grant of the letters patent, and further reciting, "And whereas the yellow colour used in this country for painting coaches and various other things, was before that period imported from abroad; but the yellow colour invented by the said James Turner, and which is composed of British materials only, has been found to be far superior to the foreign, and it is also less expensive, and has not only in a great measure superseded the necessity of importing that article, but is now exported in considerable quantities to most parts of Europe, the East and West Indies, and America, by which it has become an object of importance to the trade and commerce of this kingdom, and by the great consumption of common salt necessarily used in preparing the same, the said invention will afford an increase to the public revenue; the said invention has also rendered unnecessary the use of those noxious colours, king's yellow and orpiment, by which the health of the workmen has been frequently much injured. And whereas, notwithstanding the benefit this country will derive from the said invention, the said James Turner has been hitherto deprived of the benefit he expected to have received from his said invention, by the artifices of certain chemists and colourmen, who, taking advantage of his specification for preparing the said yellow colour, which he had caused to be enrolled in the High Court of Chancery, agreeable to the conditions of the said letters patent, and being in possession of the channels of the trade, have secretly invaded his patent, and have supplied the consumers with an inferior sort, or an imitation of the said yellow colour, without the consent of the said James Turner, by which means the sale of the yellow colour invented by him hath been almost totally taken away from him, particularly in the years 1787, 1788, and 1789, the whole of his receipts at those periods not amounting to the unavoidable expenses incurred in the preparation of the said yellow colour. And the said James Turner having instituted various actions and suits in law and equity against several of the persons who invaded his patent, one of such actions came to trial, and he obtained two verdicts therein (a new trial having been granted), and he also obtained an injunction in the court of Exchequer in consequence thereof; but the prosecuting such actions and suits was attended with much expense and loss of time to the said James Turner, and the damages awarded upon the said verdict were only nominal; so that unless the term granted by the said letters patent be prolonged, and the property in the said inven tion secured to him for an additional term, he cannot receive an adequate recompense for his labour, expense, and time, in bringing his said invention to perfection;" vests the sole privilege of making and vending the said invention in Turner, his, &c., for eleven years. The other sections of the act were to the following effect: S. 2. That Turner having for some time past furnished the said colour wholesale at five guineas per cwt., to the end that the public may be assured of the advantage of the invention at the same price, should not take any greater price. The smalt patents, ante 12, and Hartley's act, ante 56, contain similar restrictions. S. 3. This act not to hinder the making or using any colour, &c. not at present of the invention of Turner, or which has been publicly used and exercised before the date of the patent. See similar provisoes ante 34, 40, 53. S. 4. Objection that said colour was not a new invention saved. This proviso is the same as in the acts ante 53, 55; but in the act (15 G. 3, c. 61) for the extension of Watt's patent, the proviso saves any objection competent against the patent, except as to the extended term; so that an objection to the sufficiency of the specification would have been competent in Watt's case, notwithstanding the act. See ante 8. S. 5. Privileges not to be vested in more than five. S. 6. A public act. HUDDART'S PATENT. Letters patent to Captain Huddart, 25th April, 33 G. 3, A.D. Title. 1793, for "a new mode of making great cables and other cordage, so as to attain a greater degree of strength therein, by a more equal distribution of the strain upon the yarns." The substance of this invention is the making strands in Specification. which all the yarns shall be disposed in concentric cylindrical layers about a centre yarn. The yarns to form the strand are wound on separate bobbins; each yarn is then passed through holes in a register plate, these holes being on the circumferences of concentric circles around a central hole, and all the yarns are then passed through a cylindrical tube. The strand thus formed is drawn forward with a screwing motion through the tube, the effect of which is to compress the strand into a compact form, in which each yarn will occupy its proper place, at the same distance from the centre of the strand. The bobbins being at liberty, each allows the requisite quantity of yarn to be unwound from it, according to the place the particular yarn occupies in the strand, whether at the outside or inner part; the centre yarn being the shortest and the exact length of the rope. HUDDART V. GRIMSHAW. Mich. Vac. A. D. 1803. Cor. Ld. Ellenborough, C. J. This was an action for the infringement of the above patent; the circumstances of this case are stated in great detail in the summing up of the learned judge (a). (a) For speeches of counsel, Erskine for the plaintiff, and Gibbs for the defendant, see Dav. Pat. Ca. 265. tant that inven protected. Lord ELLENBOROUGH, C. J.: This is an action to recover damages for the violation of a patent entitling the plaintiff, for a limited period of time, to the monopoly of an invention, which he states to be new, and beneficial to the public. This is a speHighly impor- cies of property highly important, as it respects the interests of tion should be the individual, and with him also the interests of the public; on the one hand, persons who are really the means of promoting any beneficial object should be protected for the period the law allows, and that they should have the benefit of the article so invented; and, on the other hand, in case they are not the inventors, that they should not lock up from the public, for that limited period of time, that invention, which, if they are not the inventors, they have no priority to, and which ought to be open to the public. In inventions of this sort, and every other through the medium of mechanism, there are some materials which are common, and cannot be supposed to be appropriated Invention con- in the terms of any patent. There are common elementary masists in the adoption of terials to work with in machinery, but it is the adoption of those common ele- materials to the execution of any particular purpose that constiexecution of a tutes the invention (6); and if the application of them be new, if particular pur- the combination in its nature be essentially new, if it be productive of a new end, and beneficial to the public, it is that species of invention which, protected by the King's patent, ought to continue to the person the sole right of vending; but if, prior to the time of his obtaining a patent, any part of that which is of Publication in the substance of the invention has been communicated to the the specificapublic in the shape of a specification (c) of any other patent, or ments for the pose. (b) The attaining a particular purpose by the application of known things, is, in the opinion of the learned judge, that which constitutes an invention; and if the end, effect, or result, attained thereby be new and useful, the invention is such as will entitle the inventor to the sole right of vending it for a limited time. In the present instance, a principal part of the invention was the application of the tube in the particular manner described in the manufacture of ropes, and the result was a rope of greatly improved properties. It is important in this and similar cases, that the end or result, and the means by which such end or result is attained, should be carefully distinguished from each other; these means may, to all appearance, be trifling and insignificant, such as it would appear might have suggested themselves to any person. The history of invention presents many instances of very important results produced by changes apparently trifling and insignificant. The steam printing machine was on the point of being abandoned, from a defect which was entirely obviated by setting the inking rollers in a slightly oblique position; the immersing cloth in hot water, and the shearing it in one direction, as from list to list instead of from end to end, increased very greatly the value of the cloth so dealt with. See post, notes to Hall's patent. (c) The principle of this would appear to be, that as specifications are enrolled for the benefit of the public, and are of the nature of public records, every person who solicits letters patent must be presumed to have consulted these documents, and to have made himself acquainted with their contents. This may be a good legal presumption, but it is one not founded on fact, and daily experience shows, that inventions are reproduced by successive inventors. It frequently happens, that an invention is in advance of the age in which it is made, and consequently does not then come into general use, but is wholly lost sight of. Subsequently, a fresh demand having sprung up, or some trifling and adventitious circumstance having occurred, the same thing is reinvented by an independent inventor, without any previous knowledge of what had been done before, and then becomes an important addition to the manufactures of the country. Is not such an invention new within the words both of the statute and of the letters patent (ante, 44, n.)? It Such subsequent inventor is the true and first inventor for all practical purposes. would appear from the early cases (ante, 8), that these words import, that the invention is not to be obtained from another person; and on the same principle, if the invention be taken from a book or a specification, the party so taking it would not be the true and first inventor; and if the invention could have been derived from such a source, a presumption is raised that it has been so obtained. See Law and Practice, Statutes 5 & 6 W. 4, c. 83, s. 2, n. n. |