Novelty

The patent laws of the United States restrict the privilege to inventions which are " new and useful." Considerable discussion has arisen in the cases as to what constitutes novelty, within the meaning and policy of the law. The question is that of priority of invention, but is more general in its scope and bearing. Priority relates rather to competing claims of two applicants or patentees; novelty, to the general relations of the invention to the existing state of the art. Want of novelty is a sufficient reason why the commissioner should refuse a patent; it may also be shown in the courts to invalidate a patent which has been gi'anted. To warrant the commissioner in issvung a patent, in the first instance, he must be satisfied, upon examining the application, not only that the applicant is, as compared with any other individual claimant, the true and first inventor of the improvement, but also, and beyond this, that the thing claimed is new, as compared with the general extent of human knowledge and skill in the science or art to which it appertains. Also it is declared to be a defence to an action for infringement to show that the invention patented has been previously described in a public work. Such description is deemed to disprove novelty, and it therefore avoids the patent, whether it was known to the patentee or not. But the description must be one which was prior in point of time to the invention of the plaintiff; and it must be a description sufficiently full and precise to enable a mechanic to construct the improvement; and it must be contained in a printed book. Description in a foreign publication, or a patent defeat an application, But the law does not go beyond tbese limits, in allowing a claim to novelty to be disproved by the fact of usage abroad. An original inventor is entitled to receive a patent for his invention, even though, by reason of such invention having been known in a foreign country, he is not the first inventor, provided he believed himself to be the first inventor, and such foreign invention had not been patented or described in any printed publication. Mere use of the invention in a foreign country, unaccompanied by a patent or a published description, does not, as does a use in this country, avoid the patent. The element of novelty is determined by considerations somewhat peculiar, in the case of patents for what are called " combinations; " for a patent may be sustained for a machine embodying a novel combination of several parts, notwithstanding that each of the parts has been used in some machine formerly known. It is no objection to a patent for such a combination that some or even all of the parts have been known and used before. If the combination of them is new, and produces what is a substantially new and useful result, the combination is patentable. But a combination, to be patentable, must be substantially new, not a copy. The parts may have been used before: it is the bringing of them together that constitutes the invention. The combination must diifer materially and substantially from former combinations. The invention is not "new," if all the parts of the combination have been applied to a different object before, and they are now only applied to a new object. The claim can only be sustained by establishing novelty, not as to the parts, but as to the combination.

Noverint universi per praesentes

Know aU men by these presents. Formal words used at the commencement of deeds of release in the Latin forms. The corresponding English phrase has a moi-e extended use. NUDE; NUDUS. Bare; naked; without consideration. term is constantly used in modem laW to denote a contract which is not supported by a consideration, and therefore will not sustain an action, according to the maxim, ex nudo pacta non oritur actio, q.

V.