United Kingdom House of Lords Decisions

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URL: http://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKHL/1910/47SLR0622.html
Cite as: [1910] UKHL 622, 47 ScotLR 622

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SCOTTISH_SLR_House_of_Lords

Page: 622↓

House of Lords.

(On Appeal from the Court of Appeal in England.)

Wednesday, January 26, 1910.

(Before the Lord Chancellor (Loreburn), Lords Macnaghten, Atkinson, Collins, and Shaw.)

47 SLR 622

Hopkins

v.

Linotype and Machinery Limited.

Subject_Patent — Improvement — Original Patent Rendered more Useful or Valuable — Ambiguous Specifications.
Facts:

Any addition to a patented article which renders it cheaper or more effective, valuable, easy, or useful, or preferable as an article of commerce, is an “improvement” even although such improvement might be used without an infringement of the original patent.

Observed (per the Lord Chancellor)—if the specification of a patent is framed so as to be ambiguous the Courts may declare the patent void.

Headnote:

The appellant was bound under contract to communicate to the respondents any improvements to a patented machine manufactured by them, which might come to his knowledge. He afterwards took out letters-patent for mechanical inventions of the nature of improvements to this class of machine, but refused to communicate them to the respondents. The respondents sued upon the contract, and judgment in their favour was affirmed by the Court of Appeal ( Cozens-Hardy, M.R., Buckley and Kennedy, L.JJ.).

At the conclusion of the arguments their Lordships gave judgment as follows

Judgment:

Lord Chancellor (Loreburn)—I wish to say a few words preliminary to the advice which I shall offer to your Lordships as to the decision of this particular case. The appellant has filed a specification which resembles a treatise in its length, and contains no less than sixty claims. There is infinite redundancy and repetition and constant references to illustrations which are not easy to follow. Altogether it is a document which needs a most prolonged and penetrating study in order that anyone who wishes to work out problems of invention in this class of industry may know where he stands and how he may be free from the danger of infringing former patents. The point whether this patent is good or not is not raised in this case, but I think that it is my duty to state explicitly that those who file and secure specifications must take the risk of having the whole thing declared void for ambiguity. I have had occasion to observe that there is a tendency to frame specifications and claims so as to Puzzle a student, and to frighten men of business into taking out a licence for fear that their interpretation may be held erroneous and they be found guilty of infringement. That is an abuse of the

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law, and will be checked if occasion should require by the simple process of declaring the patent invalid. I now apply myself to the question raised in this particular case. It is whether or not the patent of 1905 constitutes or rather contains improvements upon the Hopkins machine. I think that any part does constitute an improvement if it can be adapted to this machine and if it would make it cheaper and more effective or in any other way easier or more useful or valuable, or in any other way make it a preferable article in commerce. So we have to see of what the Hopkins machine consists. It is not, in my opinion, merely so much of the machine as is novel and patentable; it is the machine itself, old and new, and includes every part of it. That being so, the chief improvement patented in 1905 was the substitution of an upright cope for a horizontal cope theretofore used in the autoplate machine, with other improvements included in the 1905 patent, which were either subsidiary or auxiliary to the one which I have described, and were admittedly improvements in the Hopkins machine itself. Everything turns on the use of the upright cope—whether or not the use of an upright cope (which had previously been used in the Hopkins machine) with the addition of a rotary motion, not claimed in the 1905 patent, and the other subsidiary changes, could be called an improvement upon the Hopkins machine itself. Both courts below thought that it could, and I share that opinion. It was, taken as a whole, a great change, but it was a change adaptable to the machine, and being adapted made the machine a better machine. I would enter more at length into the mechanical details, which were most ably explained to us by the learned counsel for the appellant, if I thought that any useful purpose could be served. It is sufficient, however, to say that I regard what was done and the particulars described to us by the learned counsel for the appellant as an improvement, not only upon the autoplate but also upon the Hopkins machine itself. There is only one other point, and it is this—Is the right of exclusive user of the communicated improvement applicable only to the Hopkins machine? I think that it is not so restricted. I think that when an improvement is communicated to either party under the terms of this contract he obtains an exclusive right to use it in regard to any machine which the contract authorised him to use in his own area as described in the contract. Accordingly I am of opinion that the appeal fails.

Lords Macnaghten, Atkinson, Collins, and Shaw concurred.

Appeal dismissed.

Counsel:

Counsel for Appellant— J. Ewart Walker — C. H. Thorpe. Agents— Foss, Bilbrough, Plaskett, Foss, & Bryant, Solicitors.

Counsel for Respondents — Bousfield, K.C.— A. J. Walter, K.C.— H. E. Wright. Agents— Hays, Schmettau, & Dunn.
1910