Smith v. Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Company/Dissent Bradley

by Joseph P. Bradley

United States Supreme Court

93 U.S. 486

Smith  v.  Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Company

MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY, with whom concurred MR. JUSTICE MILLER and MR. JUSTICE FIELD, dissenting.

I dissent from the judgment of the court in this case, on the ground that the patentee, having duly made his application for a patent in 1855, and the same having been three times rejected, must be considered as having abandoned the same, inasmuch as no further effort was made to obtain a patent until either years afterwards, without any pretence that the patentee was engaged in perfecting his invention, and in the mean time the invention which he claims as his had come into general public use. The application for a patent made in 1864 was a new and independent application, and should be treated as such. As the public had enjoyed the use of the invention for more than two years prior to this application, the patent should be declared invalid Great injustice will, in my judgment, be done to the public to allow a patent obtained under such circumstances to stand. The public had a right to suppose that no further application would be made. The levy of a tribute now on all the dentists of the country who have brought the plate into public notice and use seems to me a species of injustice. The delay of the patentee, in fact, is made to operate to his benefit instead of his prejudice, his patent being made to run eight years longer than it would have done had it been granted when first applied for; so that the public is still further injured by sustaining the patent as finally granted. It is too common a case that associated companies, in order to maintain some valuable monopoly, look about to see what abandoned invention or rejected application, or ineffective patent, can be picked up, revamped, and carried through the Patent Office, and by the aid of ingenious experts and skilful counsel succeed in getting the desired protection. I think that the courts ought to be strict in maintaining the rights of the public in such cases. And the present case seems to me to be one in which we ought to hold the patent invalid as against those rights.

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