patent specification
Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court
Definitions from Case Law
From 284 U.S. 52 - Permutit Co. v. Graver Corp. · 1931Most cited · 462 citing opinions
The statute requires the patentee not only to explain the principle of his apparatus and to describe it in such terms that any person skilled in the art to which it appertains may construct and use it after the expiration of the patent, but also to inform the public during the life of the patent of the limits of the monopoly asserted, so that it may be known which features may be safely used or manufactured without a license and which may not.
How the Supreme Court has restated “patent specification”
Each Supreme Court definition of “patent specification,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.
How often courts cite the cases defining “patent specification”
Court decisions citing the 4 opinions that defined “patent specification” — 616 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.
All 4 definitions, chronological · 1822–1931
- ORIGINAL
that if the patent be for an improvement in an existing machine, the patentee must, in his specification, distinguish the new from the old, and confine his patent to such parts only as are new, for if both are mixed together, and a patent taken for the whole, it is void.
improvement
The specification must be in such full, clear, and exact terms as to enable any one skilled in the art to which it appertains to compound and use the invention; that is to say, to compound and use it without making any experiments of his own.
degree of certainty required
An improvement of a machine is here claimed as having been invented, and the statute requires that such improvement shall be particularly specified; it is to be done in writing, and the applicant is to swear that he believes he is the first inventor of the improvement. This is required, so that the public may know what they are prohibited from doing during the existence of the monopoly, and what they are to have at the end of the term, as a consideration for the grant.
purpose of particular claim