be an infringement of the patent; while, if only the particular means—as the machine made use of-are patented, another person may devise some other means to accomplish the same result, which are not legal equivalents, and thus avoid infringement, while really making use of the principle. A process may be put in practice by means of mechanical or chemical agencies, according to its nature; in either case, new agents may be employed to produce a new result, new agents may be employed to produce an old result, or old agents may be used in new relations to reach an old or a new result, and in either case the process will be patentable.

It is of little or no importance to specify an invention as an art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, so far as any requirement of the statute is concerned, provided the description is full and clear and the claim unambiguous; for courts take notice voluntarily whether the invention be one or the other. It is, however, important not to plainly claim an invention as one of these, when it is clearly another. For instance: a man invented a process for spinning flax, the essential feature of which was the maceration of the flax, whereby it could be spun at a shorter "reach; he claimed his invention as 66 new and improved machinery "for macerating flax, etc.," when, in fact, his invention was not a machine, but a process. His patent was held invalid for this defect.1

A Machine is defined by Webster to be "any body or "assemblage of bodies used to transmit and modify force " and motion." This definition clearly gives the popular idea of what constitutes a machine; but, for the purposes

1 Kay vs. Marshall, 2 Webster's Pat. Cases, 34.

of the patent law, it may, perhaps, be more exactly defined as one of the simple mechanical powers or a combination of two or more of them. These simple mechanical powers are commonly spoken of as six in number, the lever, the inclined plane, the pulley, the wedge, the screw, and the wheel and axle. They are really but two in number, — the lever and inclined plane; for the pulley is but a combination of levers of the same length having a common fulcrum, and the wheel and axle simply a combination of two sets of levers having a common fulcrum, while the wedge is but a double inclined plane and the screw a spiral inclined plane.

The popular and common idea of a machine, as defined by Webster, is probably the one moving in the mind of the legislator who drafted the patent law; that is, a mechanical apparatus for producing or working on some tangible product, and this in distinction from a hand-tool of fixed and immovable parts, as a hammer or a gimlet, which, though strictly speaking machines, are comprehended by the patent law under the term "manufacture."

A Manufacture, in the sense of the patent law, is a finished product, in distinction from a process or a machine, which are agencies for the creation of products, and in distinction, also, from products of a chemical nature, which are comprehended under the specification of "composition of matter.'

The term "manufacture" includes most of the ordinary and vendible articles of trade, -such as textile fabrics, articles of personal attire (as hats, caps, and shoes), general hardware, house-furnishing goods, and the like,and, perhaps, some tools which have moving parts, and which are really machines.

Composition of Matter comprises medicinal and chemical preparations, and new compounds intended as articles of food, though, in some cases, a new article of food, as a new and agreeable cracker or biscuit, is as well comprehended under the term manufacture."

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It has only been intended, in this chapter, to point out what different kinds of new and useful things are patentable, and not to define in what patentable novelty and utility consist. Those questions will be discussed in subsequent chapters.

THE

CHAPTER III.

NOVELTY.

HE law requires, that an invention, to be patentable, must be "new and useful."1 This chapter is devoted to the discussion of what constitutes patentable novelty, and a most difficult question it is. The statute says that the invention must be "not known or used by "others in this country, and not patented or described in "any printed publication in this or any foreign country "before his (the inventor's) invention or discovery thereof; " so that, though an invention may be original with an inventor, and new to him, yet, if it had been known or used by others in this country, or patented or described in any printed publication in this or any foreign country, before his invention, it is not new in the meaning of the patent law, and therefore not patentable.

The reason of this is, that, in case the invention was previously known here, or patented or described in a printed publication anywhere, then the public was previously in possession of knowledge of the invention, or at least might have been, -the law counting the accessibility of the information as its possession; so that the inventor does not put the public in possession of any thing it did not possess before, and hence is not entitled to any reward.

1 Section 24, Act of July 8, 1870.

2 Ibid.

On the other hand, although an invention may have been in public use for a long time in foreign countries previous to his invention, yet, if it had not been patented or described in a printed publication anywhere, an original inventor of the same thing is entitled to a patent here, provided that, at the time he makes application, he does not know of such previous foreign use, so that he may take the oath prescribed, in good faith. Should an inventor, after taking the oath, discover the fact of such previous foreign use, that would not affect the validity of his patent, though a knowledge of such use previous to taking oath would render him unable to take the oath in good faith.

The use in this country, or patent or printed publication anywhere, which will destroy a real inventor's right to a patent must have been previous to his invention. Such use, patent, or publication will not affect the inventor's right to a patent, if such use, patent, or publication was merely prior to his application and not prior to his invention, unless the use here was a public use, with the inventor's consent, and more than two years prior to his application. What constitutes a public use here, will be discussed hereinafter.

The amount of labor or thought expended upon an invenvention is, for the purposes of this discussion, immaterial. It may be a simple but happy conception, which, when "reduced to practice, produced surprising results, both in "the quality of the article manufactured and the rapidity "with which it was turned out. A subject-matter to be "patentable must require invention, but it is not necessa"rily the result of long and painful study, or embodied "alone in complex mechanism. A single flash of thought may reveal to the mind of the inventor the new idea, and "a frail and simple contrivance may embody it. Some

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