printed letter with proper letterhead upon the upper flap portion and a signature at the bottom, one of said flap portions comprising a gift to be detached from the remainder, and means for sealing the free edges of the sheet, when folded for mailing, substantially as described."

The court said:

"The folded sheet seems to me to involve no invention, but the making of one of the folds a gift likely to preserve the name and address of the sender may do so. While the patent certainly seems very obvious, I can not say, because of facts within common knowledge, that it is void on its face for lack of novelty or invention."

The infringement of the Gellenbeck patent, No. 482,899, was the basis of the suit in the Benjamin Menu Card Co. vs. Rand, McNally Co. et al., 210 F. R., 285. Claim 1 of the patent read as follows:

"The combination, with a menu card, of two or more checks detachably secured thereto, two of said checks being designated, respectively, as 'guest's check,' and as 'cook's check,' so as to make the remainder incomplete as a bill of fare, and hence useless for another guest."

This invention was intended primarily for use on dining

cars.

In this case, the United States Circuit Court which rendered the decision affirming the validity of the patent discussed it as follows:

"The defense urges:

"That it is not a patentable invention within the intent of the patent law, it being only for a piece of cardboard paper, with printed matter or composition on both sides thereof, and divided on one side by perforated lines and employed in a system of doing business."

The court said:

"If there is invention in it, I find no ground for objection that the elements or ingredients here

employed are not themselves of patentable nature. The fact that the structure may be of cardboard with printed matter upon it does not exclude the device from patentability according to the practice of the Patent Office, as shown by the numerous patents introduced for the defense of anticipation; and the patentability of devices of like quality has been repeatedly recognized in decisions. Citing Waring vs. Johnson (C. C.), 6 Fed., 500; Thomson vs. Citizens' National Bank, 53 Fed. R., 250, etc."

It is asserted that the patent is void because "each of its claims is for the combination of a whole with one or more divisible parts thereof." This objection is that the invention is claimed as a "combination."

In Robinson on Patents, 155, this definition of a combination is given:

"When the elements are so united that by their reciprocal influence upon each other, or their joint action on their common object, they per form additional functions and accomplish additional results, the union is a true combination."

Whether this term combination was aptly given to this union of bill of fare and meal checks, or whether the invention should have been denominated "an article" as suggested by the learned experts for the defense, is not essential in view of what is actually shown. Cardboard or paper have long been used for coupon tickets of various kinds, for various uses, perforated upon the desired lines for separation, with printed matter arranged upon opposite sides as required. Printed bills of fare and printed meal checks are old. Nothing new can be claimed in either of these simple elements, but there may be invention in the thought to bring together the bill of fare, with its three courses, and the three required meal checks, so that they shall co-operate for a common object and enlist the passenger (involuntarily) in the work of detection or avoidance of fraud.

The use here employed does not seem so clearly analogous to that of the prior devices, nor is the want of invention so

apparent that the prima facie force of the patent should be destroyed, especially in view of the utility and extended use shown in this record.

One of the most interesting cases in this art is the recent. one of the Cincinnati Traction Co. vs. Pope, decided by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, 210 F. R., 443, before Knappen and Denison, Circuit Judges, and Sater, District Judge. Claim 8 of the Pope patent upon which suit was brought, clearly discloses the subject-matter of the invention and reads as follows:

"8. A transfer ticket comprising a body portion and a coupon and further provided with conventional indications to constitute a complete transfer ticket for one part of the day when said body portion is used separately and a complete transfer ticket for another part of the day when said body portion and coupon are used together.'

The court said:

(1) "The patent is assailed as relating merely to 'a method of transacting business, a form of contract, a mode of procedure, a rule of conduct, a principle or idea, or a permissive function, predicated upon a thing involving no structural law;" and counsel say that the ticket in question 'has no physical characteristics which enable it to be distinguished from any other transfer ticket or from any other printed slip of paper.' If this criticism is well taken, the subject-matter is not within the patent statute."

(2) "But while the case is perhaps near the border line, we think the device should be classed as an article to be used in a method of doing business, and thus a "manufacture" within the statute."

Broadly stated:

"The term 'manufacture,' as used in the patent law, has a very comprehensive sense, embracing whatever is made by the art or industry of man, not being a machine, a composition of matter, or a design.'

"The device of the patent clearly involves physical structure."

"The presence of conventional indications and legends does not rob the structure of patentability. In more than one of the cases cited, the structure sustained as patentable bore conventional indications and information."

"It may well be, that given the idea of the Pope patent, the expected skill of the printer or street car man would have been sufficient to determine the arrangement of printed text, and even the form of legend, etc. We think, however, the device of the structure of the Pope transfer must be held to involve invention."

In the Rand, McNally Co. vs. Exchange Scrip Book Co. case, 187 Fed. R., 984, which involved the patentability of a ticket resembling an ordinary mileage ticket except that the indicia on the coupons indicated money value instead of miles, the court in holding the patent valid said:

"There is no ground, under the circumstances, for saying that the concept is necessarily obvious. It is equally probable that it was this new concept that made the wider use of interchangeable tickets commercially obvious."

Its use

"Nor do we think that this patented concept is nothing more than a business method. is a part of a business method. The ticket patented is not a method at all, but a physical tangible facility without which the method would have been impracticable and with which it is practicable. And this is the status of thousands of like facilities that, once designed and put into use, have become the first of a new business method; and patents on such facilities have been sustained."

This patent was sustained by the court.

This case was later reopened for consideration of new

evidence submitted by the defence and remanded to the lower court; before trial however a compromise was reached and the case settled.

The above cases pertaining to the printed matter art without question show that inventions in this art may be included under the patent statute and that valid patents may be obtained therefor and that patentability must depend on the exercise of the inventive faculty, that the claims must be drawn to structure and the usual tests applicable to mechanical structure patents must be applied to determine the question of patentability.