statute 21 James I., that it should be encouraged. . Probably three-fourths of all patents granted since the statute passed are for methods of operating and manufacturing, producing no new substances, and employing no new machinery. . . . If we wanted an illustration of the possible merit of a new method of operating with old machinery, we might look at the case now before the Court. If we consider into what general use fireengines are come-that our mines cannot be worked without them that they are essentially necessary to the carrying on many of our principal manufacturesthat these engines are worked at an enormous expense in coals, which, in some parts of the kingdom, can with difficulty be procured at all in large quantities—it is most manifest that any method found out for lessening the consumption of steam in these engines, which, by necessary consequence, lessens the consumption of coals expended in working them, will be of great benefit to the public as well as to the individual who thinks fit to adopt it. And shall it now be said, after we have been in the habit of seeing patents granted in the immense number in which they have been granted, for methods of using old machinery to produce substances that were old, but in a more beneficial manner, and also for producing negative qualities by which benefits result to the public, by a narrow construction of the word manufacture" in this statute, that there can be no patent for methods producing this new and salutary effect, connected, and intimately connected, with the trade and manufactures of the country?'

66

CLASSIFICATION OF PATENTABLE INVENTIONS.

The inventions for which valid patents have been granted may be roughly divided into the following classes:

:

1. New contrivances applied to new objects or purposes.

2. New contrivances applied to old objects or purposes.

3. New combinations of old parts, the subjectmatter consisting either of material objects or of mechanical processes.

4. New methods of applying an old thing.

5. Chemical processes, usually but not always in combination with mechanical contrivances.

The reader may like to have some illustrations of these classes of inventions, and we shall proceed to offer the following:

1. New contrivances applied to new objects or purposes. Several modern inventions of great commercial or social importance would fall under this head. Amongst them are conspicuous-Apparatus to be worked by electricity for transmitting messages from place to place on land; wire cables for transmitting messages by the aid of electricity across the ocean; telephonic apparatus for transmitting words from the mouth of a speaker to the ear of a listener at a distance.

2. A new contrivance employed to effect a wellknown object to make, for instance, an article previously made in a different way is also patentable, provided that the new contrivance is attended with some degree of utility; for example, that it accomplishes the result more cheaply than the old contrivance. "There may be a valid patent' (said Lord Eldon in Hill v. Thompson, 1 W. P. C. 237) for a new combination of materials previously in use for the same purpose, or for a new method of applying such materials.'

6

Again, where an invention effects a known purpose with new materials, it will be held a patentable process. Thus, Binney obtained a patent for the manufacture of packing for the joints of steam-engines. Feltmann afterwards obtained a patent for the same object, but

he employed different materials for the packing stuff. The later patent was held to be good for a new process. (Binney v. Feltmann, W. N. 1875, p. 88.)

3. A combination of known parts, producing a new result, or producing an old result in a more economical manner or more perfect form, whereby articles cheaper or better than had ever before been produced are rendered accessible to the public, will be held a meritorious and patentable invention. This is, perhaps, the largest class of patented inventions. It was held in Crane v. Price (1 W. P. C. 408) that the combination of the hot-air blast with stone coal in the smelting of iron (the hot-air blast and stone coal having been separately in use before, but the combination being previously unknown) was an invention intended by the statute, and such as might well become the subject of a patent. It was said by Tindal, C. J., that there were numerous instances of patents where the invention consisted in no more than in the use of things already known, and acting with them in a manner already known, and producing . effects already known, but producing those effects so as to be more economically or beneficially enjoyed by the public.

That the novel combination of old parts having a useful result may form the subject of a valid patent has been again and again decided. (Lister v. Leather, 8 E. and B. 1004; Newall v. Elliott, 10 Jur. N. s. 954 ; S. C. 13 W. R. 11; Murray v. Clayton, L. R. 7 C. 570; Cannington v. Nuttall, L. R. 5 H. L. 205; Hayward v. Hamilton, Court of App. 1881.) If there be' (said Lord Westbury in Spencer v. Jack, 3 De G. J. & S. 346) a combination of several things previously well known, which combination is attended with such reresults of utility and advantage to the public that the combination itself is rightly denominated a substantial

improvement, it is impossible to deny that that is the subject of a patent.' See further as to combinations in the chapter on the Complete Specification.

A new combination of old parts may even consist of a mode of manufacturing that differs from an old process in nothing, except in the omission of a step, provided that some degree of invention has been manifested in arriving at the new combination or process. Thus in the case of Russell v. Cowley (1 W. P. C. 459) a patent had been obtained for an invention for manufacturing iron tubes, by welding them without the use of a mandrel, or internal support; and its validity being contested, it was held good. The process, from first to last, consisted in turning up the edges of a flattened metal plate until they nearly met; in heating the plate, so prepared; and in drawing it when at a welding heat through dies having a conical hole. In passing from the broader to the narrower end of the hole, the edges were compressed against each other, and were welded. together; the tube was thus formed without having recourse to the old process, which required a mandrel, whereon the overlapping edges of the metal plate were welded by means of hammers. It being contended that welding by pressure was not a new invention, Lord Lyndhurst read the specification as claiming only the manufacture of tubes without a mandrel. By the new process, tubes could be made of greater length, of greater uniformity, and considerably cheaper, than before.

It was held in Booth v. Kennard (1 H. & N. 527), that to obtain gas by the direct distillation of oleaginous seeds was a patentable invention, although gas had been previously obtained by the distillation of oil expressed from oleaginous seeds.

4. A new mode of applying a known thing may be the subject of a patent, provided that some ingenuity, some novelty, is exhibited in the mode of making that

application, and that the application is attended by some useful result. In Watt's patent for a new method of lessening the consumption of steam and fuel in steamengines, the enclosing of the cylinder in a case of wood, or any other material that transmits heat slowly, was claimed, and allowed to be a patentable invention. (Boulton v. Bull, 2 H. Bl. 463, 1 Carp. 117.) In Forsyth's patent for a method of discharging fire-arms, the patentee claimed the use and application of certain known fulminating compounds for this purpose. It was contended that, since the properties of detonating powder were well known for other purposes, the using of such materials to discharge fire-arms was not a new manufacture for which a patent could be supported. But Abbott, C. J., stated that if the invention (i.e. this particular application of detonating powder) were new, it was such a one as might be secured by patent. The jury having found the invention to be a new one, the patentee had a verdict. (Forsyth v. Riviere, 1 Carp. 404.)

Charcoal had been used in refining sugar previously to Derosne's patent; but the old method was to mix charcoal powder with the syrup, and the new was to pass the syrup through beds of charcoal constructed in a particular manner. By the old process a considerable quantity of charcoal was taken up by the syrup, and this was an injury to the sugar. In Derosne's process this objection did not arise; and, moreover, it was applicable not only to the refinement of coarse sugar, but to the original manufacture of sugar out of cane-juice. In an action brought for infringing the patent, the originality of the invention was held not to be impeached by showing that there had been an earlier use of charcoal in the refinement of sugar. No evidence was given that any other person, before the date of the plaintiff's patent, ever applied in use the