Oeste

Literally as well as figuratively, this case involves “a new twist”. The central question presented is whether the use of a twist instead of a clip to join steel wire hop-picking fingers constitutes patentable invention.

The device in question traveled a rocky road through the Patent Office. The original application, filed on August 28, 1944, contained 14 claims. On November 15, 1944, the Examiner rejected all of them as being anticipated by various specified prior patents. By numerous amendments, tenaciously pressed upon the Patent Office, the plaintiff’s assignor finally succeeded, after *404 four years of debate, in obtaining Patent No. 2,448,063, hereinafter referred to as the patent in suit, on August 31, 1948. Only four of the 23 allowed claims form the basis of the present infringement action.

After a study of the voluminous file wrapper, the Court is of the opinion that the patent was obtained — in part, at least— by progressively narrowing the claims so that they now resemble the achievement of the German specialist who kept on learning more and more about less and less, until at last he had learned everything about nothing at all!

1. The Complaint

It is alleged in…