The English patent system - 1904 Author:William Martin Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A STUDENT'S NOTE To facilitate a comprehension of the reasons given by judges in drawing their conclusions, the following sets out concisely the method and no... more »menclature employed when the construction of specifications is involved. Construction of a specification proceeds only so far as is necessary to deal with the case in hand. Usually, it is sufficient to allocate a patent to one of two classes. These classes, A and B, are spoken of or distinguished by several names as follows :— Pioneer-patent. Master-patent. Patent of the Proctor v. Bennis type. Patent to which the "doctrine of mechanical equivalents" applies. Patent for means for achieving new or hitherto unknown objects or ends. Patent for a principle and means for carrying it into effect. Patent for Improvements. Combination-patent. Patent of the Curtis v. Platt type. Patent to which the "doctrine of mechanical equivalents " does not apply. Patent for means for achieving old or well-known ends or objects. Whether a patent is of the A or B class, depends upon the construction of the specification. If it is of the A type, then what is shown and described in the specification may be by way of example only ; if of the B type, then what is shown and described excludes other means or methods from the scope of the patent. A complete construction of a specification would result in a verbal formula which would be applicable to any set of circumstances. In such a case, the allocation of the patent to the A or B class would be unnecessary. BRIEF BIBLIOGRAPHY It has been thought advisable to avoid loading the text of this Primer with references to authorities. Those, however, to whom a knowledge of authorities is of importance, and those desirous of studying the details of the English P...« less