Hill v. Commissioner of Patents
Hill v. Commissioner of Patents
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the court.
In the case of Samuel Hill, Benjamin B. Prentice and the Vermont Farm Machine Company, against the Commissioner of Patents, the court has unanimously concluded to affirm the decision of the Commissioner.
The case is here on appeal from the Commissioner of Patents, who has rejected the appellant’s application for
The Commissioner then quotes the case of Campbell vs. James, 104 U. S., 379, decided by the Supreme Court of the United States, to the effect that a patentee cannot include in a subsequent patent any invention embraced or described in a prior one granted to himself, any more than he could an invention embraced or described in a prior patent granted to a third person.
It is conceded in this case that every feature of the invention sought to be patented was shown and described, but was not claimed, in a patent which had already been granted to the appellants. After that patent had been issued to them, and when they had unduly delayed in applying for a re-issue of it, which would have been the appropriate process to perfect it, they applied to the Patent Office to grant them a .new patent for these devices. The Commissioner has refused it, and this court is asked to reverse that decision.
It is unnecessary to consider all the cases decided in the Supreme Court of the United States bearing on this question, and which have been cited and discussed by counsel,
The same doctrine is reiterated and applied in the case of Campbell vs. James, supra. In that case the court say: “It is hardly necessary to remark that the patentee could not include in a subsequent patent, any invention embraced or described in a prior one granted to himself, any more than he could an invention embraced or described in a prior patent granted to a third person. Indeed, not so well, because he might get a patent for an invention before patented to a third person in this country, if he could show that he was the first and original inventor, and if he should have an interference declared.”
These cases are conclusive of the issue here. That issue is not whether the invention has been abandoned by a failure for two years to apply for a patent for it, or until the statutory limitation of two years’ public use had run against the appellants; but whether, by manifesting these features of their invention in their prior patent, without covering them by claims, they have dedicated them to the public.
It is the judgment of this court that they have dedicated them to the public, and we, therefore, affirm the decision of the Commissioner of Patents. '
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Samuel Hill v. The Commissioner of Patents
- Status
- Published