Silsby v. Foote (61 U.S. 378)/Dissent Daniel

by Peter Vivian Daniel

United States Supreme Court

61 U.S. 378

Silsby  v.  Foote

Mr. Justice DANIEL and Mr. Justice GRIER dissented.

I concur entirely in the views expressed by my brother GRIER in this cause. I have always regarded the patent of the complainant void upon its face. I moreover consider the decree of the Circuit Court inconsistent with the claim of the complainant, unwarranted by any evidence in the cause, and most unjust and oppressive in its operation.

Although I may occasionally differ in opinion with the majority of my brethren, my usual custom has been to submit to their better judgment, without remark. But in this case I feel constrained to protest against a decree which, in my opinion, does great and manifest injustice to the appellants. In doing so, it is proper that I thus state my reasons as briefly as possible, without an attempt at their full vindication by a tedious argument.

I. I believe the patent of complainant to be void on its face.

The first claim is for the application of the 'expansive and contracting power of a metallic rod, by different degrees of heat, to open and close a damper which governs the admission of air into a stove.'Now, this claim is false in fact. The patentee was not the first to make this application of the different degrees of expansion of metals to open and close a damper to a stove. The evidence is clear, explicit, and uncontradicted. Moreover, a jury has so found in an issue ordered in this case, and which verdict does not appear to have been set aside, although it was disregarded in the decision of the case.

This claim, even if it were true in fact, is clearly void in law, unless we agree to reverse the doctrine laid down by this court in the case of O'Reilly v. Morse, with regard to the eighth claim of Morse's patent. Besides, at the trial at law, the Circuit Court decided, in 1848, that this first claim could not be sustained. Yet, with ten years' judicial notice of this defect in his patent, the patentee has never amended it, entered a disclaimer, or attempted to avail himself of the privilege offered to him by the statute to rescue it from this charge, so destructive to its validity.

At common law, a patent having this infirmity was absolutely void. The patent act of 1836, section 13, provides a remedy, 'where a patent is inoperative and void, by reason of a patentee's claiming in his specification as his invention more than he had a right to claim, and when the error has arisen through inadvertence or mistake.'

In such a case, the patentee is permitted to surrender his patent, and, on payment of a further sum, have his patent reissued as corrected. But he was not permitted to recover any damage for infringement which occurred before the date of the reissued patent.

The patent act of 1837, section 7, gives a further privilege to the patentee of escaping the consequences of such a defect, 'where his patent is too broad,' by permitting him to enter a disclaimer, to be taken and considered as part of the original specification. It does not subject him to the costs of a new patent, nor to the forfeiture of antecedent damages, where the disclaimer is made during the pendency of a suit, but gives the defendant a right to object to its validity on account of unreasonable neglect and delay in filing it.

The ninth section of the same act provides for the case where 'the patentee, in his specification, has claimed to be the inventor of any material or substantial part of the thing patented, of which he was not the first inventor, and provided it be distinguishable from other parts claimed in his patent. He is permitted to sustain his action for such part as is bona fide his own invention, forfeiting his right to costs where he has not filed a disclaimer before suit brought. But no person, bringing any such suit, shall be entitled to the benefits of this section, who shall have unreasonably neglected or delayed to enter at the Patent Office a disclaimer, as aforesaid.'

Now, the first claim of this patent does not come within the category of the ninth section. It is not for 'a material and substantial part of the thing, distinguishable from other parts,' but it is the case embraced in the seventh section, where the claim is void, because it is too broad.

Here the claim is for a monopoly of the expansive power of metals when applied to a stove, and this expansive power is a necessary agent in every claim for a combination in the patent.

The seventh section gives the patentee no right to recover at all, unless a disclaimer has been filed before trial or judgment. But, assuming that the privilege given by the ninth section be available to the patentee in this case, has he brought himself within the proviso? He has refused to avail himself of the privilege tendered to him by the law, and stands upon his patent. Notwithstanding the decision of the Circuit Court against this claim in 1848; notwithstanding the decision of this court in O'Reilly v. Morse; notwithstanding the verdict in 1853, declaring this claim false, no disclaimer has ever been entered. The pendency of the suit could be no reason, for the acts contemplate a pending suit. I cannot consent to say that this is not a case not only of unreasonable delay, but of stubborn rejection of the privilege offered by the law.

The case of O'Reilly v. Morse cannot be quoted as a precedent for this. There, Morse was admitted to be the original inventor of the application of an element of nature in his eighth claim; but the court decided that it was void, because it was too broad. Until that decision was read in court, the patentee had not the least reason to suspect his claim to be invalid. The decision was a surprise not only to him, but many others more learned in the law, who had carefully examined this claim, and advised the patentee that it was valid. In the present case, the patentee disregarded the judgment of a Circuit Court, a verdict of a jury, and judgment of this court, all of which warned him of the necessity of a disclaimer many years before final judgment.

I cannot consent to annul the statute altogether, and allow its benefits to a patentee who has subbornly refused to submit to the conditions on which they are tendered.

II. The interlocutory decree of the court below does not condemn the defendants for infringing the third claim of the complainant's patent, on which alone it was decided on the trial at law the defendant was liable, and on which it is now attempted to justify this decree. What that decree is, must be judged by the record, and not by any parol explanations or contradictions of it.

The decree affirms--

1st. That the plaintiff was the first inventor of the application of the expansion and contraction of the inflexible metallic rod to the regulation of the heat of stoves.

2d. That any regulator in which the expansive and contracting power of an inflexible metallic rod, which expansion and contraction is produced by changes in the heat of the stove regulated, is applied to the damper to regulate the heat of the stove, is embraced within the principle of the invention claimed in the patent.

3d. That the defendants have made and sold regulators embracing that principle.

4th. That they must account for all regulators made and sold by them, which embrace that principle.

This decree charges the defendant with the infringement of the first claim of the patent, and is in conformity with the doctrines advanced in the charge of the court, on the issue tried before them, where the court thus define the claim of the patent:

'Now, in this case, as I understand the claim of the patentee, he claims the application of the principle of expansion and contraction in a metallic rod for the purpose of regulating the heat of a stove. That is the new conception which he claims to have struck out, and, although the mere abstract conception would not have constituted the subject-matter of a patent, yet, when it is reduced to practice by any means, old or new, resulting usefully, it is the subject of a patent, independently of the machinery by which the application is made.'

Again, speaking of the first claim, he says:

'That claim is not for any mode or method of applying the expansion and contraction of the metallic rod to regulate the heat of the stove, but it is for the conception of the idea itself.'

The interlocutory decree says, therefore, in effect, that the brass rod regulators, which the defendants admit in their answers that they made and sold, are infringements of the plaintiff's patent, because they embrace the principle of the application of the expansive and contracting power of an inflexible metallic rod to the damper of a stove. And the master is directed to take an account of all regulators that fall within the principle specified, no matter what their mechanical structure is or how they may differ from the regulators of which the plaintiff gives a description in his specification, and no matter whether they embrace or not anything that the plaintiff claims in either his second, his third, or his fourth claim. The plaintiff and the court below say, in effect, that they do not care for any proof as to whether any claim of the patent but the first is infringed; and that, as the defendants have been guilty of applying the expansive and contracting power of an inflexible metallic rod to open and close the damper of a stove in which changes in the heat of the stove produce the expansion and contraction, they must respond for all instances of such application.

The defendants are found guilty of infringing the first claim of the patent alone. No testimony was produced in the case to show that the Race patent infringed the third claim, and this fact was emphatically denied in the answer. Nor was the verdict and judgment at law put in evidence. And if it had been, it is no estoppel in equity to the defendants' putting the truth of that charge of the bill in issue in his answer. That verdict and judgment is put into the bill, as laying a proper ground for the granting of the preliminary injunction. Nor is it true, as now asserted, that this court has decided the question in the case of Silsby v. Foote, 14 Howard, 225.

On that trial the court below had instructed the jury, 'that the defendants had not infringed the plaintiff's patent unless they had used all the parts embraced in the plaintiff's combination,' and submitted the question to the jury whether there had been such infringement.

This instruction was adjudged by this court to be correct. The question whether the verdict was correct was not before this court, and could not have been decided.

The third claim which it is now alleged to be infringed is as follows:

'I also claim the combination above described, by which the regulation of the heat of a stove or other structure, in which it may be used, is effected.'

The law requires that a patent should 'particularly specify and point out the part, improvement, or combination, which the patentee claims as his own invention.'

This claim does not specify the combination claimed, otherwise than by reference to the body of the specification where two distinct and complex combinations of numerous parts and devices are set forth.

After a full and fair trial, the jury have found, on an issue directed for that purpose, that the complainant was not the first and original inventor of the combinations set forth in this claim. But assuming that the court may disregard this verdict, and, without setting it aside or ordering a new trial of the issue, treat it as a nullity; and assuming, that without any testimony whatever being offered in the case, the court may, on view of the models, declare that the defendants' patent infringes that of complainant; and assuming the doctrine affirmed by this court in Silsby v. Foote, and McCormick v. Manny, to be correct, 'that defendant has not infringed plaintiff's patent unless he has used all the parts embraced in plaintiff's combination,' I think it is clear to ocular demonstration that the defendants have not infringed either of the combinations claimed, unless we assert that all other combinations which produce the same result are equivalents for the first-a sophism which has just been rejected by this court in the case of McCormick v. Manny. A vindication or demonstration of the correctness of this conclusion could not be made intelligible unless by a long recital from the specification, and an exhibition of models or diagrams. The decree of the court below very properly does not assert or adjudge that defendants have used the complex combination of complainant's specification in any of its numerous parts save one-the expanding rod. On this point, therefore, my objection to the affirmance of any portion of this decree is, because it is founded on a claim admitted to be void in law, and is sustained by presuming, contrary to the record, that it was founded on a claim found by verdict in the case to be void in fact, and without any proof of infringement save ocular demonstration of the contrary.

III. But, assuming the verdict of 1848 between the present complainant and some of the defendants to be conclusive as an estoppel on all of them, notwithstanding the denial of the answer and the evidence of our senses, yet that verdict was between the complainant's patent and the Race patent, which is called the 'brass-rod regulator,' then used by the defendants. It had no reference whatever to the 'expander patent,' afterwards used by defendants. There is no charge in the bill that the combination of this last patent infringes the complainant's patent. There was no evidence offered to prove such to be the fact. The master's report declares it not to be an infringement of the combination of the third claim-it is patent to the eyes of any one who will examine the models, that it does not; yet, because it used the expansive power of metals, the defendants are mulcted in the sum of $7,033 damages, not for invading the complainant's rights, but for evading his patent by a patented invention for a different combination. I forbear to make any further remarks on this enormity, because it is affirmed by the division of the court, and their opinion has, happily, not been compelled to defend it by argument. As it is without precedent, so neither can it be cited as such hereafter.

IV. Lastly, after a very long and laborious investigation, the master has found that the profit of making and vending the machine charged as an infringement, is ten cents on each regulator. This finding of the report was excepted to by the complainant. The court overruled the exception and confirmed the report on this point; and, nevertheless, assess the damage at ten-fold the amount. By what process of reasoning or arithmetic, on what facts or what principle of law, this astonishing and ruinous decree is founded, it does not undertake to explain. I can conceive of no other ground than that the court have calculated the whole profit of the stove, as was done in the case of Seymour v. McCormick, and overruled by this court.

Believing, therefore, that the decree of this court, so far as it affirms any portion of the decree of the Circuit Court, is not only unsustained by evidence, but contrary to the law as heretofore established by this court, I cannot give my assent to it.