Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern
District of New York.
1. Reissued patent No. 5,774 to Shubael Cottle, February 24, 1874, for
improvement in chains for necklaces, declared void, the first claim, if
not for want of novelty, for want of patentability, and the second for
want of novelty.
2. Neither the tubing, nor the open spiral link formed of tubing, nor
the process of making either the open or the closed link, nor the
junction of closed and open spiral links in a chain, was invented by the
patentee.
3. All improvement is not invention and entitled to protection as such.
Thus to entitle it it must be the product of some exercise of the
inventive faculties, and it must involve something more than what is
obvious to persons skilled in the art to which it relates.
The decree of the circuit court is therefore reversed, and it is ordered
that the bill be dismissed.