ment of the object and benefit to be attained? You will observe that the greater part of the defendant's case is truly directed to this objection. This is a question of law, and I must tell you distinctly, that this generality of claim, that is, for all modes of applying the principle to the purpose specified, according to, or within a general statement of the object to be attained, and of the use to be made of the agent to be so applied, is no objection whatever to the patent. That the application or the use of the agent for the purpose specified, may be carried out in a great variety of ways, only shows the beauty, and simplicity, and comprehensiveness of the invention. But the scientific and general utility of the proposed application of the principle, if directed to a specified purpose, is not an objection to its becoming the subject of a patent.

"That the proposed application may be very generally adopted in a great variety of ways, is the merit of the invention, not a legal objection to the patent.'

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"I state to you the law to be, that you may obtain a patent for a mode of carrying a principle into effect; and if you sug gest and discover, not only the principle, but suggest and invent how it may be applied to a practical result by mechanical contrivance and apparatus, and show that you are aware that no particular sort, or modification, or form of the apparatus is essential in order to obtain benefit from the principle, then you may take your patent for the mode of carrying it into effect, and are not under the necessity of describing and confining yourself to one form of apparatus. If that were necessary, you see what would be the result. Why that a patent could hardly ever be obtained for any mode of carrying a newly discovered principle into practical results, though the most valuable of all discoveries. For the best form and shape, or modification of apparatus, cannot, in matters of such vast range, and requiring observation on such a great scale, be attained at once; and so the thing would become known, and so the right lost, long be fore all the various kinds of apparatus could be tried. Hence you may generally claim the mode of carrying the principle into effect by mechanical contrivance, so that any sort of apparatus applied in the way stated, will, more or less, produce the benefit, and you are not tied down to any form."

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"I have to tell you in point of law, that under this patent not claiming any or the best contrivance for heating the air, and at the least expense and trouble, the result which actually followed, viz.: that persons in the trade and acting on the patent, contrived, from time to time, a great variety of contrivances more or less valuable or costly, and at last came to settle generally into

one form as better than others, was exactly the result which might be expected to follow under a patent of this general character, and that if the patent is good in law, then it gives no form of apparatus for heating air, but claims the contrivance generally, of heating the blast for the effect and end of producing heat in the furnace. The only point for you is, will any contrivance which heats the blast, produce that beneficial effect and end ?"

The subject was fully discussed by counsel before the House of Lords, and by the Lords themselves, and that august tribunal, so far as appears, without a dissenting voice, decided the law to be as laid down in the foregoing extracts from the charge to the jury.

On that occasion Lord Campbell made the following remarks, viz.:

"The other exceptions, till we come to the 11th, turn upon the construction of the patent. Now in one stage of these proceedings, I certainly did entertain some doubt on that subject. But after the construction put upon it by the learned Judges of the Exchequer, sanctioned by the high authority of my noble and learned friend now upon the woolsack, when presiding in the Court of Chancery, I think the patent must be taken to extend to all machines, of whatever construction, whereby the air is heated intermediately between the blowing apparatus and the blast furnace. That being so, the learned Judge was perfectly justified in telling the jury, that it was unnecessary for them to compare one apparatus with another, because, confessedly, that system of conduit pipes was a mode of heating air by an intermediate vessel between the blowing apparatus and the blast furnace, and therefore it was an infraction of the patent."

Thus it was decided by the Courts of England and Scotland, including the House of Lords, substantially in the language of the exceptions, that the patentee being the discoverer of a new principle, and the inventor of means, however simple and imperfect, by which he has rendered it in some degree useful, may "claim or maintain that his patent is one which applies to all varieties in the apparatus which may be employed in heating air while under blast," and is "not limited to a particular apparatus described in the specification" "-that it is "in point of law no objection to the validity of such a patent that it included every mode of applying the principle or agent so as to produce the specified result, although one mode may not be described more than another, although one mode may be infinitely better than another, although much greater benefit would result from the application of the principle by one method, than another; although one method be much less expensive than another, and that this generality of claim, that is, for all modes of applying the principle to the purpose specified, according to, or within

the general statement of the object to be obtained, and of the use to be made of the agent to be applied, is no objection whatever to the patent."

But it is distinctly laid down in the same case, that the pat entee, if he wishes to enjoy his invention thus broadly, must take care in his specification not to confine himself to the single mode described by him; otherwise he will be confined to that mode. Webster's Patent Cases, pp. 679, 682, 688, 698, Ex. 6.

As well in the facts as in the law, there is a remarkable analogy between Neilson's patent for the hot air blast and Morse's patent for the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph. In Neilson's case, the ultimate result was the manufacture of iron which was old.

In Morse's case, the ultimate result was the telegraph communication of ideas from one mind to another, which was old. In Neilson's case, the furnace, the fuel, the fire, the ore, the hot air, the blower, and iron boxes were old.

In Morse's case, the clockwork, the paper, dots and dashes, galvanic electricity, the battery, the circuit, the electro magnet, and the key were old.

Neilson put the old parts together in such manner as to heat the air in its transit, though he did not claim heating the air, without even a "simple contrivance" of his own invention.

Morse put the old parts together, by a port rule to regulate the pulsations of the electric current so as to make the dots and dashes of any desired length, by a contrivance to regulate the motion of the paper to receive them, by the pen or pencil in the first patent to delineate them, and the pen-point and grooved roller in his second patent to indent them, and by combined and local circuits.

In Neilson's case, the clumsy iron box in his combination, which was the only patentable part of his invention, was immediately abandoned in practice, being superseded by coils of pipe in which the air could be heated to a higher degree of tempera. ture; but in the case of Morse, it is his own invented forms and combinations now in use unimproved, which make his Telegraph.

True, his port rule, which forms a part of his invention, is not used, because, in common business, the end can be better attained without it; but this constituted a small part of his patentable invention.

Though the whole of Neilson's patentable invention was abandoned in practice, yet the British Courts of highest resort sustained his claim to the exclusive use of hot air applied to furnaces: And on what ground? On the ground, that he was the first to devise and describe the means of applying the hot air, no matter how bungling or imperfect those means were, if they were such as to make the application to any degree useful.

They decided that he was entitled to the whole principle and effect, because that was his real invention, and although it was

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necessary for him to devise and describe some plan by which the object could be attained, when he had described one such mode, it carried with it all modes. They do indeed lay down one exception to this rule, dependent, however, on the patentee himself. It is where the patentee so frames his specification as to imply that he intends to confine himself to the mode described by him. In that event, he is entitled to nothing beyond that particular mode. Neilson avoided that restriction, by declaring in his cification, that the size and shape of the box in which the air was to be heated, and the manner of heating the air, were immaterial. Morse avoids it by directly declaring, after he has described his machinery, that he does not propose to confine himself to it, but claims all modes wherein the same application of power is employed to attain the same end, both the application and end being new. And the Court will not fail to remark, that such a declaration, or something equivalent to it, was absolutely necessary to bring Morse's invention within the protection of the law as laid down in Neilson's case.

With this exposition, we confidently submit, that, upon the admissions of our adversaries, that by a few simple contrivances of Morse's invention, described in his specification, he has produced "the first practically useful Electro-Magnetic Marking Telegraph," he is entitled to the protection of this Court against all other Electro-Magnetic Marking Telegraphs, whatever may be their form or modes of operation.

But our adversaries, while admitting facts sufficient to entitle us to protection under the law as laid down in Neilson's case, resolutely contest the law itself. They sing us the old song, with all its variations, that principles, effects, and results cannot be patented.

So, in the same sense, machines or means cannot be patented. An abstract machine is no more patentable, than an abstract principle or result. Go to the Patent Office with the most beautiful machine ever devised, seeming to perform evolutions more wonderful and sublime than those of the heavenly spheres, and tell them you want a patent for it. They will ask you the very commonplace question, "of what use is your beautiful machine? What USEFUL RESULT do you accomplish by it?" If you reply "I don't know, I have not yet studied that out," they will tell you "you must know,-you must not only study that out, but you must give us an intelligible description of it before we can give you a patent."

Go to the Patent Office, and tell them that you have discovered a principle, or achieved a result, more important to the wealth, comfort, and happiness of mankind than all discoveries and inventions which have been made from creation down to this day, and ask a patent for it. They will ask you how you

apply the principle so as to produce any useful result, or how you produce a result so astonishing? If you answer that you do not choose to tell, or have yet to study that out, they will tell you, that you must not only study it out, but give them an intelligible description of it, before they can give you a patent for it.

Every cause has its effect, and every effect its cause. Machines and their results, in the eye of the patent law, cannot be separated. They come into existence together, and march, pari passu, hand in hand. They are the body and the soul. Without the soul the body is dead, and protection would be useless; without the body, the soul needs no human protection. It is body and soul united, which need the protection of human laws, and it is only body and soul united that such laws are designed to protect.

In the beginning of invention, every new machine produced a new result. They formed the basis of all subsequent improvements. By the principles of justice as well as patent law, the first inventor was entitled to be protected both in his machine and his result, in the one as well as in the other, both being his property, the fruits of his mental and manual labor. The second inventor by an improved machine might produce an improved result, and would be entitled to protection for his improvement, and for his improvement only. It would be as unjust to let him deprive me of my result because he has improved it, as of my machine because he has improved that. He cannot build on my foundation without my leave; but having purchased my machine and results, he adds his improvements, and enjoys the whole together. The first inventor is entitled to the whole result; the second to his improvement upon it; so also the third, and so on. But gradations in results are not so easily distinguished as alterations in machinery, and as they both go together, the law attempts to define and protect an improvement in the result, through the improvement of machinery by which it is produced. When it speaks of a new and useful machine, it means a machine which produces a new and useful result; and when it speaks of a new and useful improvement, it means one that produces an improvement in the result. To understand the meaning of the law, we must look upon the machine and its result as one,-one in origin, one in object, and one in the eye of the law.

But our adversaries, like multitudes of others, separate machines from their results, and seem to think the former the only objects which the patent laws are designed to protect. We hold, on the contrary, that the ultimate object of the patent laws is, the protection of results, and so far as they are applicable to the protection of machines, the object is to protect the result through