James v. Campbell/Dissent Miller

by Samuel Freeman Miller

United States Supreme Court

104 U.S. 356

James  v.  Campbell Campbell

MR. JUSTICE MILLER dissenting.

As regards the right to a patent for an i vention like this, which can be of use to no one but the government of the United States, and which is, therefore, in effect a contract by the United States that it will not use that which is essential to some of its most important operations without paying to the patentee whatever he may demand for the use of his invention, I have great doubt,-a doubt which it would have been necessary to solve in this case if the majority of the court had believed the patent sued on valid.

In the opinion just delivered they have held that while the original patent to Norton might have been valid for some purposes, the reissued patent is void because it is not for the same invention. In this view I do not concur.

The general post-office and its branches had long been in search of an instrument which by one blow-one strike of the hand would mark the name of the place where a letter was mailed and the time, and so deface the postage-stamp on the letter as would make it impossible to be used again.

This had been done by the use of a single die, which held the type indicating date, &c., and which was made to cover the stamp also, so that the date obliterated the stamp by covering it. For reasons not necessary to mention this did not answer, and it became desirable to have an instrument which at one stroke defaced the stamp and made beside, but apart from the stamp, the postmark date.

Many attempts to do this had been made with more or less success. Most of them failed because the handle which conveyed the power from the hand of the operator was so placed in regard to these two marking instruments that they did not strike with entire unity, in point of time, on all the space of the letter to be covered by the two instruments. In my opinion the record shows that Norton was the first man to accomplish this result by uniting these two marking instruments by a cross-bar between them, and placing the shank or handle common to them both so precisely in the centre between them on the cross-bar that the stroke brought the type and the obliterating device on to the surface of the paper precisely level, and with precision as to time, over the space which they were designed to cover.

This, I think, was the principal merit of his invention. Connected with it, however, and essential to it, was his device for obliterating the stamp. In his original patent this is described as a cylinder into which is fastened something which receives the indelible ink used to obliterate the stamp, and which imparts it to the surface of the stamp by the blow or strike already mentioned. This, he said in his original patent, was made of wood, cork, rubber, or other suitable material.

It was discovered, by experience, afterwards that iron was a more suitable material than wood, or cork, or rubber, and in the reissue of the patent, on which this action is founded, iron is mentioned as one of these suitable materials.

I do not think this should invalidate the reissue if the original patent was good. If iron was a suitable material it was covered by the original patent. If better than the materials specifically named, that did not exclude it from the original patent nor make the reissue void.

Nor do I concur in the opinion that the combination of the printing and erasing instrument by a cross-bar and shank or handle, which brought the force employed in the stroke to act equally and simultaneously on all the surface to be impressed, was anticipated by any other patent or any other invention.

It would serve no good end to go into all the testimony with the elaborate care which characterizes the opinion of the court on these disputed points. I therefore content myself with stating the principal points in which I differ with that opinion.

Notes