Hobbs v. Beach

Citations

• 180 U.S. 383
• 21 S. Ct. 409
• 45 L. Ed. 586
• 1901 U.S. LEXIS 1315

Syllabus

<p>The first three and sixth claims of reissued letters patent No. 11,167 to Fred H. Beach for a machine for attaching stays to the corners of boxes, were not anticipated by prior devices, and are valid.</p> <p>It is within the jurisdiction of the Oommissioner of Patents to order a patent to be reissued to correct an obvious error in one of the drawings.</p> <p>The claims of .the Beach patent were not unlawfully expanded pending the litigation of interferences in the Patent Office.</p> <p>A patent is not terminated by the expiration of a foreign patent for the same invention, unless such patent were obtained by the American patentee, or by his consent, connivance or authority.</p> <p>The first three and sixth claims of the Beach patent held to be infringed by defendant, manufacturing under a patent to Horton of December, 1890.</p> <p>The fact that a claim contains the words “substantially as described” does not preclude the patentee from insisting that his patent has been infringed by the use of a mechanical equivalent. These words are entitled to but little weight in determining the question of infringement, although, if a doubt arose upon the question whether an infringing machine is the mechanical equivalent of a patented device, that doubt might be resolved against the patentee, where the claims contain the words “ substantially as described, or set forth.”</p>