Hicks v. Kelsey
Supreme Court of the United States
Hicks obtained a patent for an improved wagon-reach, and filed a bill against Kelsey, charging infringement and praying the usual relief. The defendant answered, denying the novelty of the alleged invention, and also denying infringement.
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Hicks obtained a patent for an improved wagon-reach, and filed a bill against Kelsey, charging infringement and praying the usual relief. The defendant answered, denying the novelty of the alleged invention, and also denying infringement. The thing called a “ wagon-reach” — that is to say, a pole or shaft connecting the front and rear axles of wagons or carriages, and having an upward crook or curve in it, so as to allow the front wheel, which, when a carriage is turned, goes against the reach if straight, to pass under it — had confessedly long been made, and was public property. These had…
1Opinion of the CourtJustice Bradley
The question is whether the mere change of material— making the curve of iron instead of wood and iron — was a sufficient change to constitute invention ; the purpose being the same, the means of accomplishing it being the same, and the form of the reach and mode of operation being the same.
It is certainly difficult to bring the case within any recognized rule of novelty by which the patent can be sustained. The use of one material instead of another in constructing a known machine is, in most cases, so obviously a matter of mere mechanical judgment, and not of invention, that it cannot be…
2Cited by73 opinions
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- Reckendorfer v. FaberSupreme Court of the United States · 1876
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