Cohn v. United States Corset Company/Dissent Clifford

by Nathan Clifford

United States Supreme Court

93 U.S. 366

Cohn  v.  United States Corset Company

MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD dissenting.

Inventors are required, before they receive a patent, to deliver a written description of their inventions, and of the process of making, constructing, and using the same, 'in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms,' as to enable persons skilled in the art or science to make, construct, and use the same.

Power to grant letters-patent is vested in the commissioner; but when the power is exercised and the patent has been duly granted, it is of itself prima facie evidence that the patentee is the original and first inventor of that which is therein described and secured to him as his invention.

Proofs are admissible to overcome that presumption; but it is well-settled law that patented inventions cannot be superseded by the mere introduction of a foreign publication of the kind, though of a prior date, unless the description and drawings contain and exhibit a substantial representation of the patented improvement, 'in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms,' as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which it appertains, to make, construct, and use the invention to the same practical extent as he would be enabled to do if the information was derived from a prior patent. Applicants for a patent are as much required to describe the manner and process of making, constructing, and using the invention, as they are to file in the Patent Office a written description of the alleged improvement; and both are expressly required to be in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms, as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to make, construct, and use the invention.

Nothing deserving the least consideration is exhibited in the record to support the defence that the appellant is not the original and first inventor of the patented improvement, except the Johnson specification, which, in my judgment, does not contain or exhibit a substantial representation of the patented invention in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms, as to enable even an expert, without previous experiments, to make, construct, or practise the invention.

Instead of that, the provisional specification fails altogether to describe the means or mode of operation by which the pockets of varying lengths are to be stopped or closed in the process of weaving. Conclusive support to that proposition is found in the fact that it became necessary for the infringers to experiment for a long time before they could imitate the patented product.