Harmon v. Bird & Bird
New York Supreme Court
This was an action of assumpsit, on a promissory note, tried at the Genesee circuit in October, 1836, before the Hon. Addison Gardner, then one of the circuit judges.
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This was an action of assumpsit, on a promissory note, tried at the Genesee circuit in October, 1836, before the Hon. Addison Gardner, then one of the circuit judges. The suit was brought on a promissory note, the consideration of which was the transfer of a right to make and vend, within certain limits, an improvement in a threshing machine, for which Harmon had obtained a patent in 1829. In the schedule annexed to the patent, the improvement was described, without describing the threshing machine already in use. The deed to the defendants, after reciting that Harmon had invented “ a new and…
1Opinion of the Court
By the Court,
Bronson, J.
It is said that a patent for an improvement must describe the machine already in use, and the cases of Sullivan v. Redfield; 1 Paine, C. C. R. 441, and Cross v. Huntly, 13 Wendell, 385, are cited in support of the position ; but that was not the point decided in either of those cases. A description of the original machine can only be necessary when there is no other way in which it can be ascertained with reasonable certainty in what the improvement consists, and how it is to be applied. Threshing machines had long been in use, and were well understood at the time this…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Cross v. HuntlyNew York Supreme Court · 1835
3Cited by3 opinions
- Pratt v. Paris Gas Light & Coke Co.Supreme Court of the United States · 1897
- Taylor v. ArmstrongSupreme Court of Arkansas · 1863
- Middlebrook v. . BroadbentNew York Court of Appeals · 1872