Process

In Practice. The means of compelling a defendant to appear in court, after suing out the original writ, in civil, and, after indictment, in criminal, cases. In a broader sense all writs and mandates issued in the course of the proceeding.

15 Pla. 410.

The method taken by law to compel a compliance with the original writ or commands of the court. In a strict sense, "process" is confined to the mandate of a court under its seal, whereby a party or an officer of the court is commanded to do certain acts. Thus, the summons used in many states, signed by plaintiff's attorney only, is not process.

12 Minn. 80; J7 Ore. 564.

In civil causes, in all real actions and for injuries not committed against the peace, the first step was a summons, which was served in personal actions by two persons called summoners, in real actions by erecting a white stick or wand on the defendant's grounds. If this summons was disregarded, the next step was an attachment of the goods of the defendant, and in case of trespasses the attachment issued at once without a summons. If the attachment failed, a distringas issued, which was continued till he appeared. Here process ended in injuries not committed with force. In case of such injuries, an arrest of the person was provided for. See "Arrest." In modern practice some of these steps are omitted; but the practice of the different states is too various to admit tracing here In the English law, process in civil causes is called "original" process, when it is founded upon the original writ; and also to distinguish it from mesne or intermediate process, which issues pending the suit, upon some collateral interlocutory matter, as, to summon juries, witnesses, and the like. "Mesne" process is also sometimes put in contradistinction to "final" process, or process of execution; and then it signifies all process which intervenes between the beginning and end of a suit.

3 BI. Comm. 279.

And this is the modern usage.

31 N. J. Law, 231.

In Patent Law. The art or method by which any particular result is produced. A process, eo nomine, is not made the subject of a patent in our act of congress. It is included under the general term "useful art." Where a result or effect is produced by chemical action, by the operation or application of some element or power of nature, or of one substance to another, such modes, methods, or operations are called "processes." A new process is usually the result of discovery; a machine, of invention. The arts of tanning, dyeing, making waterproof cloth, vulcanizing india rubber, smelting ores, and numerous others, are usually carried on by "processes," as distinguished from "machines." But the term "process" is often employed more vaguely in a secondary sense, in which it cannot be the subject of a patent. Thus, we say that a board is undergoing the process of being planed, grain of being ground, iron of being hammered or rolled. Here the term is used subjectively or passively, as applied to the material operated on, and not to the method or mode of producing that operation, which is by mechanical means, or the use of a machine, as distinguished from a process. In this use of the term it represents the function of a machine, or the effect produced by it on the material subjected to the action of the machine, and does not constitute a patentable subject matter, because there cannot be a valid patent for the function or abstract effect of a machine, but only for the machine which produces it.

15 How. (U. S.) 267, 268. See 2 Barn. & Aid. 349.