Double use
Defined in 2 dictionaries — Case Law, Bouvier (1914)
Definitions from Case Law
From 52 U.S. 248 - Julia Hotchkiss Executrix of John Hotchkiss Deceased John Davenport and John Quincy v. Miles Greenwood · 1850Most cited · 797 citing opinions
It is well settled, that a patent cannot be granted for a new use of the thing, or, as it is commonly stated, a double use. The application of an old machine to some new purpose is not the foundation of a patent; but an improvement of an old machine, in order to apply it to the same purposes more advantageously, is the subject of a patent.
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia
John Bouvier; revised by Francis Rawle · 1914
A term used in patent law to indicate that a later device is merely a new application of an older device, not involving the exercise of the inventive faculty. In construing letters patent for new applications of old devices, if the new use be so nearly analogous to the former one that it would occur to a person of ordinary mechanical skill, it is only a case of double use; but if the relations between them are remote, and especially if the use of the old device produce a new result, it may involve an exercise of the inventive faculty — much depending upon the nature of the changes required to adapt the device to its new use; Potts v. Creager, 155 U. €. 597, 15 Sup. Ct. 194, 39 L. Ed. 275. See Patent.