se to the suit. The district court missioner on the grounds assigned by the aims, and for the further reason alien elsims did not "combine to pro ess after observing the operation of cocination without the cutting knife, as tres, concluded that the device was s operation than the old method of sand, and, without deciding the point, vas plausible to say "that two distinct sed in the application.” examination of the issues raised by the med the judgment of the district court ndependent ground that a patent on sen should not be granted because of "the g a principle which permits a patent extended by granting claims on distinct ... the applicant has no intention of exset inventions." It said: "The record e subcombination patent] is to be used se vrotect the patent monopoly of another 22 17-99 10. wit: the complete machine. There to make or license others to make the eesuse, although it is possible to use tting knife, it is not designed for such inIt thought that the grant of a patent tee has no intention of exploiting as a NAHONY "for the purpose of blocking the demachines which might be constructed by consistent with the constitutional requireda de patent grant must "promote the Progress Seve and useful Arts." ented to no factual basis in the record for the No eat petitioner contemplates either the misuse w of the combination patent, other than that suggested in the court's opinion that the complete machine does the work better than the subcombination, without the knife, can do it and that there would be no reason to manufacture the partial machine when the complete machine was available. A separate opinion in which all the judges concurred also states that petitioner “admitted, both on argument and in its brief in the present case, that its purpose in filing the disputed claims was to 'protect' the main invention and that it had no intention of manufacturing the subcombination machine." The reference, as agreed by counsel on the argument before us, is to a statement in petitioner's brief in the court below that: "The claims in issue are sought purely to prevent appropriation of the . . . machine by the obvious expedient of eliminating the splitting mechanism." It will be observed that this statement of petitioner is not of a purpose either to suppress the use of the patented invention or to use it or the patent to exploit or enlarge the patent monopoly of the complete machine. The court below found support for its conclusion in our decisions holding that a patentee may not enlarge the monopoly of his patent by licensing his invention on terms or conditions which tie to its use the use of material or devices which the licensed invention does not embrace, whether they are patented, Ethyl Gasoline Corp. v. United States, 309 U. S. 436, 459; Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co. v. United States, 226 U. S. 20, or unpatented, Motion Picture Patents Co. v. Universal Film Mfg. Co., 243 U. S. 502; United Shoe Machinery Corp. v. United States, 258 U. S. 451; Carbice Corporation v. American Patents Corp., 283 U. S. 27; Leitch Manufacturing Co. v. Barber Co., 302 U. S. 458. It is clear that no such case is presented here. We find nothing in the statement quoted from petitioner's brief in the court below or in the record to indicate that petitioner proposes to make any such use of the patent which sole gro sustaine him for. that the duce ar The petitio shown: far n prep adde inves t. od of licensing it or otheronly a purpose to prevent mee machine by the appropri in the subcombination for There is nothing to suggest purpose to enlarge the monopstion or of the complete mareir uses. Control of a part s of enlarging an already ace. And, obviously, licensing ch is less useful than the whole, -stances disclosed by the record, enlarging the use of the whole. ol of the whole would be a legitito acquire and retain control of Sa patentable invention. And we timate to use a patent on the subBeans of preventing appropriation by ..er's more important complete invenusing, where there is absent, as there se to enlarge the monopoly of either the combination embodied in the comwithout the allowance of the subcombinadid not, as the court below thought, prevent of the subcombination. Corn-Planter Patent, S224; Schumacher v. Cornell, 96 U. S. 549, ... v. Lindsay, 113 U. S. 97, 101; Mercoid Corp. cinent Co., 320 U. S. 661, 668. Hence denial At on the subcombination would deprive the of the benefit of the exclusive right to use the cination in the ways specified by the patent laws. d also leave the public free to use, and thus to priate a part, however important, of the inventor's ete machine, even though patented. ELL If, as we must assume, petitioner has two inventions, both of which are useful and one of which includes the other in its entirety, it is evident that the value of the former would be greatly impaired if the subcombination invention could be freely used by others. See Deering v. Winona Harvester Works, 155 U. S. 286, 302. But such appropriation or impairment of the value of the full combination could be achieved only by appropriation of the unpatented subcombination which is by hypothesis also a useful invention, entitled to claim the benefit and protection of the patent laws. The statutes permit, and it is the settled practice of the Patent Office, many times sustained by this Court, to allow, claims to a combination and also its subcombinations. Philadelphia, W. & B. R. Co. v. Dubois, 12 Wall. 47, 60; Deering v. Winona Harvester Works, supra; Leeds & Catlin Co. v. Victor Talking Machine Co., 213 U. S. 301, 318; Altoona Theatres v. Tri-Ergon Corp., 294 U. S. 477, 487; Mercoid Corp. v. Mid-Continent Co., supra, 667. The question then is whether, without more, the use of the subcombination patent to prevent appropriation of the complete machine so infringes any provisions or principles of the patent laws, or is so contrary to principles governing the award of equitable relief, as to permit the court to refuse the judgment, which the statute authorizes, directing that the patent issue. In answering it the court below assumed that such purpose to protect the whole invention was to be achieved by complete suppression of the use of the subcombination invention and that the suppression for the protection of the complete machine would invalidate the patent because it would be contrary to the constitutional purpose and to the spirit if not the letter of the patent laws. We think both assumptions are unwarranted. Section 4886 of the Revised Statutes authorizes "any person who has in Opinion of the Cou it now seeks, either by the method A patent on plete machine, tion claims, wo the free use of 23 Wall, 181 554; Rowel v. Mid-Co of a pate inventor subcomb It wou! approb comp' U.S. the y posis from the grant vend" the ht to license very terms of han a means of from the patentee, : a grant is an inconsiste constitutional author- Progress of Science and entors "the exclusive Right Congress, in the choice of Marts by patent grants, could should be conditioned upon tion, as in fact it did provide 77) authorizing the issue of ed upon the use of the invenater repealed (5 Stat. 117, 125). at an unpatented invention public thus deprived of all ܨ ܇ܢ It could have concluded that est promoted by compliance with sattes which it did enact, which anted only for a limited term sclosing the invention and the ng it. It thus gave to the iny to gather material rewards for sure to the public the benefits of full tion and the right to use it upon |