McDowell v. Ideal Concrete Mach. Co.

187 F. 814, 109 C.C.A. 574, 1911 U.S. App. LEXIS 4245
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJanuary 5, 1911
DocketNo. 1,696
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 187 F. 814 (McDowell v. Ideal Concrete Mach. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
McDowell v. Ideal Concrete Mach. Co., 187 F. 814, 109 C.C.A. 574, 1911 U.S. App. LEXIS 4245 (7th Cir. 1911).

Opinion

BAKER, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). In General Electric Co. v. Richmond St. Ry. Co., 178 Fed. 84, 102 C. C. A. 138, this court said:

[820]*820“Without the existence of one or the other of two conditions precedent, the Commissioner of Patents is not authorized to grant a reissue. Either the original specification must be defective or insufficient, or the original claims must embrace more than the patentee had a right to claim as new. But neither condition is available unless the error arose from inadvertence, accident, or mistake, and without any fraudulent or deceptive intention.” ___, .

In the present case the mistake, if any, did not inhere in the drawings or in the specification (apart from the claims), nor did the patentees claim more than they were entitled to claim as new. So if the word “specification” in the second sentence of the above quotation is to be limited to that part of the patent which precedes the formal claims, this case would be at an end. In the Richmond Case, how* ever, the Commissioner’s jurisdiction to grant a reissue was invoked on the grounds that the original specification did not describe with sufficient definiteness or accuracy the action of the magnetic arc-extinguishing device, and that the term “arc deflector,” as used in the specification and in claims 10, 11, 12, and 13, was uncertain and ambiguous; and it was therefore unnecessary to state the construction given to the word “specification,” which appears in the opinion in exactly the same context as in the statute.

[1, 2] By settled interpretation the, word “specification” in the first sentence of section 4916, Rev. St. (U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3393), may cover the entire original patent. The inquiry, therefore, is what are the conditions under which a reissue may lawfully be granted in lieu of an original patent unaltered save by the addition of enlarging claims ?

One condition is that, on surrender of the original patent, a new patent “for the same invention” shall be issued. Other conditions, emphasizing the one just stated, are that “no new matter shall be introduced into the specification”; and, the original and reissue here being for a machine, and no model being filed, that “the drawings shall not be amended.”

For example if, in a patent for improvements in an old art, the drawings fully exhibit a complete and operative machine made up of 20 elements; the specification (apart from the claims) clearly explains the machine, its working principle and the best mode in which the patentee has contemplated applying that principle, and also particularly points out that the patentee’s contribution to the art consists (a) of the combination, in the machine, of elements 1,'2, 3, and 5, (b) of elements 2, 3, 4, and 6, (c) of elements 5, 6, 7, and 9, and (d) of elements 6, 7, 8 and 10 (all in accordance with section 4888 [U, S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3383]); and the claims distinctly cover (a), (b) , and (c) — then there would be a basis for an application for a reissue by showing, say, that claim (d) had been drafted but had been inadvertently omitted by a copyist. Conversely, if claims (a), (b), (c) , and (d). were in the original and by mistake some part of the description of the machine had been omitted, or there had been a failure in the statement of invention to include (d), there would be grounds for a reissue. In the first example the patent (partly operative) would be inoperative to protect a part of the invention, described, but not claimed; in the second, claimed, but not explained [821]*821and described. In both, there would be a defective or insufficient patent which was inoperative to secure fully to the inventor a monopoly of the subject-matter disclosed in the patent as his invention or inventions.

Continuing the illustration suppose that ,the original patent, after describing the machine as aforesaid, and particularly pointing out that the invention or inventions consisted in (a), (b), (c), and (d), had distinctly claimed (a), (b), (c), and (d). In what respect is the patent inoperative or invalid? True, the drawings and description showed a machine of 20 elements. But any one on reading the patent would have the right to believe and to act on the belief, so far as the owner of the patent is concerned, that elements 11 to 20, and every combination thereof, were open to free use, and that elements 1 1o 10 were open, and also every combination of .them except (a), (b), (c), and (d). Now, if the truth was that the inventor in constructing the machine had made new and useful combinations among elements 11 to 20 and also broader inventions than those described and claimed among elements 1 to 10, it would seem that from his point of view they were all one and the same invention or group of inventions. But if enlargement is to come, not from evidence contained in the original patent (or in the proceedings to obtain it), but from what the inventor subsequently says (truthfully or untruthfully) was in his mind prior to filing the original application, a region 'of danger, of temptation to fraud and deception, would be opened wide which Congress has commanded should be kept closed. For the reissue must be limited to the same invention that the inoperative patent discloses as the invention.

“Reissued letters patent must, by the express words of the section authorizing the same, he for the same invention, and consequently where it appears on a comparison of the two instruments, as matter of law, that the reissued patent is not for the same invention as that embraced and secured (attempted to be secured?) in the original patent, the reissued patent is invalid, as that state of facts shows that the Commissioner, in granting the nfew patent, exceeded Ms jurisdiction.” Seymour v. Osborne, 11 Wall. 516, 544, 20 L. Ed. 33.
“Invalid and inoperative patents may be surrendered and reissued for the same invention, but Congress never intended that a. patent which was valid and operative should be reissued merely to afford the patentee an opportunity to- expand the exclusive privileges which it secures, to enable him to suppress subsequent improvements which do not conflict with the invention described in the surrendered patent.” Gill v. Wells, 22 Wall. 1, 19, 22 L. Ed. 699.
“The original patent was not inoperative nor invalid from any defective or insufficient specification. The description given of the process claimed was, as stated by the patentee, full, clear, and exact, and the claim covered the specifications; the one corresponded with the other. * * * The evident object of the patentee in seeking a reissue was not to correct any defects in specification or claim, but to change both, and thus obtain, in fact, a patent for a different invention.'’ Russell v. Dodge, 93 U. S. 460, 464, 23 L. Ed. 973.
“The Legislature was willing to concede to the patentee the right to amend Ms specification so as fully to describe and claim the very invention attempted to be secured by his original patent, and which was not fully secured thereby, in consequence of inadvertence, accident, or mistake; but was not willing to give him the right to patch up his patent by the addition of other inventions, which, though they might be his, had not been applied for by him, or, if applied for, had been abandoned or waived.”

[822]

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Bluebook (online)
187 F. 814, 109 C.C.A. 574, 1911 U.S. App. LEXIS 4245, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/mcdowell-v-ideal-concrete-mach-co-ca7-1911.