White v. Dunbar
Citations
- 119 U.S. 47
- 7 S. Ct. 72
- 30 L. Ed. 303
- 1886 U.S. LEXIS 1963
Syllabus
<p>The claim of the inventor in letters-patenfxmitst be construed according to its terms; and when its import is plain, resort cannot be had to the context for the purpose of enlarging it.,</p> <p>A reissue which materially enlarges the claim in the original letters-patent, and which was made five years after their issue, is held to be invalid.</p>
How courts have described this case
Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.
- reiterating that an inventor’s patent claims must “define precisely what his invention is,” because ambiguity is both “unjust to the public” and “an evasion of the law.”
- noting that it is “unjust to the public, as well as an evasion of the law, to construe [the invention] in a manner different from the plain import of its terms”
- explaining “[t]he claim is a statutory requirement, prescribed for the very purpose of making the patentee define precisely what his invention is; and it is unjust to the public ... to construe it in a manner different from the plain import of its terms.”
- specification is appropriately resorted to “for the purpose of better understanding the meaning of the claim”
- a patent claim is not “like a nose of wax which may be turned and twisted in any direction”
- specification is appropriately resorted to “for the purpose of better understanding the meaning of the claim”
Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).
Judges: Bradley
Read full opinion on CourtListenerSourced from CourtListener / Free Law Project (CC0).
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