Download or read book A Collection of Patent Cases written by James Burch Robb and published by General Books. This book was released on 2012-02 with total page 136 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Blanchard v. Sprague. 3 Sumncr. tent. I do not know, that it has ever been decided, that, if the claim of an inventor for an invention of a compound states the ingredients truly, which the inventor uses to produce the intended effect, the suggestion, that other ingredients of a kindred nature may be substituted for some pan o them, has been held to avoid the patent in toto, so as to make it bad, for what is specifically stated. In the present case it is not necessary to consider that point. My opinion is, that the specification is not, in point of law, void, from its vagueness, or generality, or uncertainty. The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff. Judgment accordingly. Thomas Blanchard v. Chandler Sprague. 3 Sumncr, 535. May T. 1839.] Patents are entitled to a liberal construction, since they are not granted as restrictions upon the rights of the community, but to promote science anJ useful arts. A patent will not be valid, which is simply for a principle or function detached from machinery. Congress has general power, under the Constitution of the United State, to grant patents to inventors; and it rests in the sound discretion of Conjrres? to say, when and for what length of time, and under what circumstances, the patent for an invention shall bo granted. Therefore, an Act of Congress- granting a patent, was not unconstitutional, though it operated retrospectively to give a patent for an invention, which, though made by the patentee- was in public use, and enjoyed by the community at the time of the passage- of the act. A patent was granted by Act of Congress of 1834, ch. 213, but declared void by the Court, on the ground of a defect in the act. Afterwards the grant of the patent was renewed by another Act of Congress, (1839, ch. 14.) Qwrre, wh...