United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Cochrane v. Badische Anilin & Soda Fabrik, 111 U.S. 293 (1884)

Cochrane v. Badische Anilin and Soda Fabrik

Argued March 26-27, 1884

Decided April 14, 1884

111 U.S. 293

Syllabus

If the claim of reissued letters patent No. 4321, Division B, granted to Charles Graebe and Charles Liebermann April 4, 1871, for an "improvement in dyes or coloring matter from anthracine" (the original patent, No. 95,465, having been granted to them October 5, 1869), namely:

"Artificial alizarine, produced from anthracine or its derivatives by either of the methods herein described, or by any other method which will produce a like result,"

is construed so broadly as to cover a dyestuff, imported from Europe, made by a process not shown to be the same as that described in No. 4321 and containing large proportions of coloring matters not shown to be found to any practically useful extent in the alizarine of the process of No. 4321, such as isopurpurine or anthrapurpurine, it is wider in its scope than the original actual invention of the patentees, and wider than anything indicated in the specification of the original patent. If the claim is to be construed so as to cover only the product which the process described in it will produce, it does not cover a different product which cannot be practically produced by that process.

This was a suit in equity for the alleged infringement of a patent for improvement in dyes from anthracine. The nature of the invention, the extent of the claims, and the facts which went to show the infringement or to affect the validity of the patent are fully brought out in the opinion of the Court from the large mass of testimony in the record. Judgment below sustaining the validity of the patent, from which the alleged infringers appealed.

Page 111 U. S. 294