Morey v. Lockwood, 75 U.S. 230 (1868)
U.S. Supreme Court
Morey v. Lockwood, 75 U.S. 8 Wall. 230 230 (1868)Morey v. Lockwood
75 U.S. (8 Wall.) 230
Syllabus
1. Where a limitation of a claim, as found in a patent, has been caused by a mistake of the Commissioner of Patents in supposing that prior inventions would be covered, if the claim was made, as the applicant makes it, more broad, and an inventor has thus been made to take a patent with a claim narrower than his invention, it is the right, and, as it would seem, the duty of the commissioner, upon being satisfied of his mistake, as to the nature of the prior inventions, to grant a reissue with an amended specification and a broader claim.
2. Where the amended specifications and broader claim secures the patentee only the same invention that he had originally described and claimed, the reissue is valid.
3. The syringe known as the Richardson syringe is an infringement of the patent for a syringe, granted March 31, 1857, to C. & H. Davidson, and reissued April 25, 1865, with an amended specification.
4. The Davidsons were the original and first inventors of the syringe patented by the patent and reissue above referred to.
Lockwood, assignee of the inventors, filed a bill in the court just named to restrain Morey and others from infringing letters patent granted to Charles H. and Herman E. Davidson, on the 31st of March, 1857, for a new and useful improved syringe; and which were surrendered and reissued on the 25th day of April, 1865, with an amended specification. The diagram below presents a sectional view of the instrument; now commonly called.
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The case was this:
Prior to the date, when, by the inventions of Goodyear,
India rubber had become so important an agent in surgical operations, the only syringe in much use was the old metallic syringe, with a plunger, sometimes known as the pump syringe. The objections to the use of it, whether anal or vaginal, were, amongst others, that it required to be worked, if the party was at all feeble, by a second person, that it required the patient to be moved and placed in certain positions before it could be used, thus, sometimes, causing a strain; that where the parts were delicate or diseased, it was liable, even when thus used, by slipping or accidental motion, to injure them; and finally, that unless the instrument was large, when the inconvenience of it was proportionally increased, it required, in many cases, however used, to be removed, refilled, and replaced before a sufficient injection could be obtained. With the discoveries in manufacturing India rubber, three improved forms of the instrument were made.
1. The globe syringe, composed of a simple globe or bulb of India rubber with an inflexible pipe inserted in it. By compressing the bulb, the air was expelled and a vacuum caused. The pipe being then placed in any fluid, it flowed by the weight of the external atmosphere into the globe, from which, on the extremity of the pipe being inserted into the part to which it was designed to convey it, the fluid passed on compression of the globe by the hand. One objection, among others, to this instrument was that it had to be removed, refilled, and replaced if the injection required was large. The desideratum remained of a syringe which could supply itself, and which, avoiding any strain upon the patient's body, would hold the enema steadily and close to it.
In this condition of the art, so far, apparently, as was known to him, Herman E. Davidson, a physician, resident in Gloucester, Massachusetts, had been attending, prior to August, 1852, a patient, suffering from uterine cancer, and who used a globe syringe, with a rubber bulb and a single inflexible tube. Observing the inconvenience and discomfort to the patient of having to remove this instrument from the body, from time to time, in order to refill the instrument
with the enema, Dr. Davidson suggested to a brother of his, Charles H. Davidson, who was a machinist, the making of a syringe which could supply itself with enema without being so removed.
Thereupon, Charles Davidson devised and made a drawing of a syringe, in which the elastic sac had but one opening, the two flexible tubes being coupled to it at that point, the enema entering the sac through one tube and being expelled through the other; a "single-neck" syringe, and having a "three-way connection." The bulb was more round than oval -- nearly spherical -- being the shape of the bulb in the syringe which the patient was then using. Dr. Davidson suggested the use of the oval form of bulb, and also, as a simpler and better mode of combining the parts, to have the two flexible tubes enter the sac at opposite sides.
In the early part of January, 1853, the Davidsons filed a caveat in the patent office, announcing that they had made certain improvements in syringes, and that they were now perfecting them prior to an application for a patent; their petition, together with the accompanying description, being dated on the 8th of January in that year. In that description, the petitioners state that their improvement consisted in using a spheroidal, cylindrical, or globular elastic sac, or bulb, to which were attached, and communicating with it, flexible tubes or pipes; to the ends of which pipes were connected valve boxes, with suitable valves therein, so that by the alternate action of compression and expansion, the desirable quantity of injection might be administered without removing the instrument to refill it.
When application was made by the attorney of the inventors to the Commissioner of Patents, with a claim for the combination of an elastic sac, with flexible tubes, terminated with suitable valve cases and valves, the whole operating together in the manner and for the purpose set forth, objection was made by the office, on the ground that they were anticipated by Messrs. Pearsall & Gilbert, who, according to an account published in the Franklin Journal, had already improved syringes by making a rubber sac with two
tubes coupled to it at one point. The diagram, which the Franklin Journal presented, was thus:
image:b
And the commissioner refused to grant the patent, except with a claim, thus -- the clause in italics, "when the sac, tubes, and valve boxes are in, or nearly in, the axial line," being particularly insisted on:
"What we claim as new, and desire to secure &c., is the combination of the prolate spheroidal shaped elastic sac with flexible tubes, terminating in valve boxes, containing valves, arranged for the purpose of eduction and ejection, when the sac tubes and valve boxes are in or nearly in the same axial line, the whole operating together substantially in the manner and for the purpose set forth."
The specification in this form was supposed to have taken the improvement out of the objection of the prior one by Pearsall & Gilbert.
In May, 1856, the Davidsons acquiesced in the rejection, and submitting an amended and restricted claim, the patent was granted.
The original specification described the improvement, in substance,
"To consist of an oval, or spheroidal elastic bulb, with flexible tubes and metallic valve boxes, containing valves arranged for the purpose of eduction and ejection, when the elastic tubes and metallic valve boxes were attached to such an elastic bulb in, or nearly in, its greatest axial line. The bulb and flexible tubes are composed of India rubber, or of any suitable material of
sufficient elasticity and flexibility, as is necessary, and required by the patentee in the use or operation of the instrument."
The specimens exhibited were all made of India rubber.
The mode of operation of the instrument was described as follows:
"Immerse the end of the eduction pipe in the enema, compress the bulb with the hand, which will expel the air from within, then releasing the grasp, the bulb will recover its form by means of its elasticity, and the partial vacuum will be filled with the enema; then insert the injection pipe, and repeat the operation of compressing the bulb until the required quantity of the enema is administered."
Having described the invention, what the inventors claimed as new were the matters already mentioned as the ones thought proper by the commissioner to be so claimed, to-wit:
"The combination of the prolate spheroidal-shaped elastic sac, with flexible tubes, terminating in valve boxes containing valves, arranged for the purpose of eduction and ejection, when the sac, tubes, and valve boxes are in, or nearly in, the axial line, the whole operating together, substantially in the manner and for the purposes set forth."
Subsequently to this grant of this patent, it was discovered by the patentees, or their assignee, and also by the commissioner himself, that the invention of Messrs. Pearsall & Gilbert furnished no legal objection to the claim of the Davidsons, as first presented to the office; for, although the prior improvement had a rubber sac, the tubes were metal and inflexible. Accordingly, on a surrender by the assignee he was allowed to amend the claim by restoring it to its original form, and the office granted a reissue with the claim in that form.
The amended specification was substantially the same as the original, leaving out that part which described the bulb, or sac, tubes, and valve boxes, attached and so arranged as to be "in, or nearly in, its greatest axial line." As respected the claim, it was as follows:
"What is claimed as the invention of Charles H. and Herman
E. Davidson, is a syringe, having an elastic bulb or chamber, flexible tubes, and a suitable valvular arrangement, when organized, so as to operate substantially as described."
This claim, it will be observed, is the same with the one in substance made by the Davidsons, and refused by the commissioner when the patent was applied for.
By the 13th section of the Patent Act of 1836, a surrender and an amended specification may be made when the patent issued is inoperative or invalid by reason of a defective or insufficient description or specification, or "if the error has, or shall have arisen by inadvertence, accident, or mistake, and without any fraudulent or deceptive intention."
The invention which the bill sought to enjoin was one known as
image:c
The instrument had the same parts and materials as the one made by the Davidsons, but instead of arranging them in an axial line, the bulb or sac was placed above the point of delivery and discharge of the enema, extending its "single neck" (which was of course hollow), so that the tubes might connect with each side of it. The difference between it and the instrument of the patentee was that in the latter, in the axial line, tubes connected with the ends of the bulb; in the former they connected not with the ends of the bulb, but with the sides of its hollow neck. The enema passed from the eduction pipe through the neck or throat into the bulb,
and was forced through the discharge pipe by the same means as those used by the patentees.
The chief ground on which the defendants resisted the invention were:
First. That the claim was broader than the invention.
Secondly. No infringement, want of originality, setting up here as the same in principle certain other syringes confessedly of prior date, as:
image:d
This it was admitted was a large step from the globe syringe towards that of Davidson. It was composed of an India rubber chamber, in form cylindrical, with metallic rims or casings at the ends. From these casings there proceeded a metallic tube of about one-third the diameter of the metallic casings, upon which tubes the inner end of flexible pipes, for eduction and injection, were drawn. Appropriate valves were placed within these small metallic tubes. The mode of using was meant to be the same as in the Davidson syringe. But the difficulty was that the metallic heads, which formed a material part of the enclosure, being rigid, counteracted, by their connection with the elastic part of the chamber, the patient's effort to compress it. Accordingly the patient, if a female, or otherwise feeble, could not well compress it, and even when the party using it was not feeble, the strength required to compress the chamber was so considerable that no one cared to use it. Practically it proved of no value. Very few were ever sold. The Davidson syringe on the other hand came into nearly universal use at once.
2. THE THIERS SYRINGE
This was an instrument of French manufacture. It had two flexible tubes, with suitable valves, but it did not have
an elastic bulb or chamber, in form at least, like that shown in the patent. A diagram of it is below.
image:e
1. It was not made of elastic material, but of a metal base plate and a rubber hood set upon it; the rubber hood forming one substantial part of the chamber to be collapsed, and the metal base plate forming the other substantial part thereof.
2. The chamber was not expanded by the elasticity of the material, but by means, wholly or partly, of a metal spring placed within the chamber.
3. The necessary prolongation of the flow of the pressure after the collapsing of the chamber had ceased was accomplished, not by the reaction of the chamber alone, as in the Davidson instrument, but by that and an air-chamber acting in connection with it.
These Thiers syringes were imported to and sold in this country in small numbers until about the time of the introduction of the Davidson syringes, and soon after that disappeared from the market.
In addition to these were numerous syringes, known as the Galante, the Phelps, the Johnson the Hernstein, the
Leroy, the Feuchtwanger, and others, some of which had had a certain sale and others none; all were displaced by Davidson's. Much evidence was taken on the one part to show their priority to that of Davidson, and on the other to disprove it, but no priority was sufficiently shown.
The court below decreed an injunction, and from the decree this appeal came.
