Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

269 F. 679

Docket No. 1340.

In re Lees

District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals

Submitted November 11, 1920.

Decided December 6, 1920.)

District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1920-12-06

<p>Patents <§=136—Reliance on solicitor does not authorize reissue with broadened claims.</p> <p>An affidavit that applicant was unskilled in patent matters and relied on his solicitor, and only recently discovered that the claims were not as broad as the invention, does not show special circumstances excusing the delay, which alone authorized a reissue of the patent with broadened claims more than two years after the original issue.</p> <p><S=eFor other eases see same topic & KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests & Indexes</p>

2 counsel of record

Relies on Topliff v. Topliff · Miller v. Brass Co. · Application of Schneider

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Affirmed · Decided 1920-12-06

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently January 1950

4 federal appellate · 2 district ·

401920193019401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Patents <§=136—Reliance on solicitor does not authorize reissue with broadened claims.

¶2An affidavit that applicant was unskilled in patent matters and relied on his solicitor, and only recently discovered that the claims were not as broad as the invention, does not show special circumstances excusing the delay, which alone authorized a reissue of the patent with broadened claims more than two years after the original issue.

¶3<S=eFor other eases see same topic & KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests & Indexes

¶4Appeal from the Commissioner of Patents.

¶5In the matter of the application of Ernest J. Eees for reissue of a patent with broadened claims. Application denied, and applicant appeals.

¶6Affirmed.

¶7C. B. Mueller, of Cleveland, Ohio, for appellant.

¶8T. A. Hostetler, of Washington, D. C., for Commissioner of Patents.

¶9ROBB, Associate Justice.

¶10Appeal from a decision of the Patent Office refusing to reissue appellant’s patent with broadened claims; the application having been filed about two years and five months after the granting of the patent.

¶11In the affidavit accompanying the application for reissue, appellant states that he was unskilled in patent matters, relied upon his solicitor, and only recently discovered that his claims were not as broad as his invention. Since it is settled law that a patent will not be reissued after the lapse of two years, for the purpose of enlarging *680its claims, unless special circumstances are shown to excuse the delay (Miller v. Brass Co., 104 U. S. 350, 26 L. Ed. 783; Topliff v. Topliff, 145 U. S. 156, 12 Sup. Ct. 825, 36 L. Ed. 658; In re Starkey, 21 App. D. C. 519; In re Schneider, 49 App. D. C. 204, 262 Fed. 718), it cannot be said that there was any abuse of discretion on the part of the Patent Office in ruling that such special circumstances have not been shown here.

¶12It follows that the decision must be affirmed.

¶13Affirmed.

/269/f1d/679 · .json · Public domain