any successful or valuable result. [Goodyear v. Day, 2 Wallace, 283.

126. He who reduces speculation to practice, whose experiments result in discovery, and who then afterward first puts the public into practical and useful possession of the compound, art, machine, or product, is entitled to the patent right. [Ibid.

127. When a full and candid description of the manner and process of making and compounding any invention or discovery, describes such manner in a concrete and illustrative, rather than in an abstracted and essential way, the description will cover every kind of application which was meant to come within, and which men of science can see is really involved in, the principle attempted to be described. And so conversely, where an abstract description or abstract term is used, or an agent is described generally, rather than in its forms, the application of the thing, and not the form of the thing, being patented this is enough. The last point is the one adjudged, the other being asserted. [Goodyear v. The Railroad, 2 Wallace,

356.

128. Patents are benignly construed in favour of inventors; and in considering the validity of a patent, objected to for want of a proper "description of the invention or discovery" having been filed previously to its issue, this description, even if quite wide of truth when taken literally, may be aided and made good by the description of "the

manner and process of making, constructing, using, and compounding the same. [Goodyear v. The Railroad, 2 Wallace, 356.

129. The public has rights to be guarded; and these exact that the specification of the patentee shall set forth his invention so fully and definitely that it cannot readily be misunderstood. [French et al. v. Rogers et al., C. C. Penn'a., Grier and Kane, Jj., November, 1851.

130. It is still contended, and with much of elegant research into the radical meaning of the term, that an art, as such, cannot be made the subject of a patent. But, interpreting language as men use it around us, and as it reflects ideas, the question can hardly be regarded as doubtful. The constitutional provision, under which our patent laws are framed, looks to the promotion of "useful arts." The act of Congress places "a new and useful art" among the discoveries it professes to protect, and assigns to it the first place on the list. The statute of 21 James, ch. 3, from which the patent system of England has grown up, speaks only of "new manufactures," yet the judges in that Kingdom find a warrant in this limited expression for sustaining patents for an art, and even for the renewed discovery of an art that had been lost. [Hot Blast Case, Webster, P. C., 683, 717, 736; Hindmarch, 77–102; Kane J., French et al. v. Rogers et al., C. C. Pa., 1851.

II. Specification and Description of the Invention or Discovery. The Claim.

1. In the present case, the patent and specification claimed for the patentee, as his invention, was the cutting of ice of a uniform size, by means of an apparatus worked by any other power than human. It claimed, also, not only the invention of this art, but also the particular method of the application of the principle, stated in the specification, which was by two machines described therein, called the saw and the cutter. It was held by the court, that the specification, so far as it claimed the art of cutting ice by means of an apparatus worked by any other power than human, was the claim of an abstract principle, and void; but so far as it claimed the two machines described in the specification, it might be good, if a disclaimer were made of the other parts, according to the patent act of 1837, (ch. 45., sects. 7, 9,) within a reasonable time, and before the suit were brought. But a disclaimer, after the suit was brought, would not be sufficient to entitle the party to a perpetual injunction in equity, whatever might be his right to maintain a suit at law on the patent. [Wyeth v. Stone, 1 Story, 273.

2. A patent for an improvement in a machine must describe the machine in use, of which it is an improvement, so that it may be known in what the improvement consists; and a note given for a patent, defective in that respect, is void for want

of a consideration. [Cross v. Huntly, 13 Wendell, 385.

3. If the patentee claims, as a part of his invention, some things which are old, and some new, he cannot succeed, without disclaiming what is old. [Hovey v. Stevens, 1 Woodbury, 290.

4. It should appear also, with reasonable certainty, whether the complainant in his patent claims a new combination of old parts and things, or a new invention of new parts; and if not intelligible as to what is claimed, the patent may be void for uncertainty. [Ibid.

5. The court will give a liberal construction to the language of all patents and specifications, and will, in all cases, by taking the whole together, adopt that interpretation of a specification which will give the fullest effect to the nature and extent of the claim made by the inventor. [Ryan v. Goodwin, 3 Sumner, 514.

6. The inventor of a new compound, wholly unknown before, is not limited to the use always of the same precise ingredients in making that compound; and if the same purpose can be accomplished by him by the substitution in part of other ingredients in the composition, which have never been so used before, he is at liberty to extend his patent so as to embrace them also. [Ibid.

7. Where an inventor claimed as his invention the combination of phosphorus with chalk, or any other absorbent earth or earthy material, and glue, or any other glutinous substance, using the ma

terials in the proportions as substantially set forth in the specification, in making matches, it was held that the patent was not void as being too broad and comprehensive. [Ibid.

8. No defect or concealment in the specification will void the patent, unless it arises from an intention to deceive the public. [Whittemore v.

Cutter, 1 Gallis, 429.

9. A patent for an improvement should describe the machine in use, that it may be known in what the improvement consists. [Sullivan v. Redfield et al., 1 Paine, 112.

10. A party had patented "a new and useful improvement in a steam tow-boat;" but the specification did not mention the invention as an improvement, but simply described a tow-boat; and the court held that the specification was broader than the patent, and therefore bad. [Ibid.

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11. The specification described the invention as consisting essentially in attaching the packet to the steamboat, with ropes, chains, or spars, so as to communicate the power of the engine from the towing vessel to the vessel taken in tow, and kept always at convenient distance, the manner of applying the power varying with the circumstances in some measure." It was held, bad, for uncertainty. [Ibid.

12. The invention should be so clearly described as to enable the public to put it in use. [Ibid.

13. If the patentee has assigned his patent in part, and a joint suit is brought in equity for a