The court below sustained a demurrer to a complaint in an action at law brought by the plaintiff in error against the defendant in error to recover damages for the infringement of letters patent No. 839,996, granted to Lawrence Holmes on January 1, 1907, for “apartment house with disappearing bed.” There are 13 claims in the patent; but, when analyzed, the essential features of the invention are the construction of adjacent rooms in an apartment house in such a way that in one of the rooms, by the use of a double floor, a recess is created, into which a bed from the adjoining room may be stowed when not in use, thereby closing the opening between the rooms in such a way as to leave no suggestion of a bed. The demurrer to the complaint was sustained, on the ground that the invention was not within any of the classes of those which are made patentable by law. Patents may be obtained for any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement *325 thereof, or any new, original, and ornamental design for any article of manufacture. Aside from these specific classes of patentable inventions, no invention or improvement is patentable, however useful and novel it may be. Jacobs v. Baker, 7 Wall. 295 , 19 L. Ed. 200 ; Fond du Lac County v. May, 137 U. S. 395 , 11 Sup. Ct. 98, 34 L. Ed. 714 Milligan, etc., Glue Co. v. Upton, 17 Fed. Cas. 384 (No. 9,607).

It is claimed that the invention in the present case comes within the term “manufacture,” when that term is given the liberal construction which accords with the genius and purpose of the patent laws. But it cleárly would be an undue expansion of the word “manufacture” to hold that it includes the construction of a house, or of any room or recess in a house. As used in the patent laws, manufactures comprise articles or implements made by human agency from raw or prepared materials. It would be a gross misuse of the word to say that a house, or a room in a house, is manufactured. While many devices and many novel combinations of materials used in the construction of houses are within the protection of the patent laws, it has never been held, so far as we are advised, that any particular form of construction of a room in a house, or of a recess in a room, is patentable, whether considered by itself or taken in combination with any conceivable use to which it may be put. So far as the decisions have gone, it has been to hold the reverse of this. In Jacobs v. Baker Mr. Justice Grier was of the opinion that a jail cannot be considered a machine or a manufacture or a composition of matter within the meaning of the patent act; and in Fond du Lac County v. May, 137 U. S. 395 , 11 Sup. Ct. 98, 34 L. Ed. 714 , the court, in referring to Jacobs v. Baker, said:

The plaintiff in error cites Crier v. Innes, 170 Fed. 324 , 95 C. C. A. 508 , as authority for the construction which he contends for. In that case the patent was for a sarcophagus monument, constructed of four parts. Answering the contention that the patent was invalid, because it related to a monument, which was not a “manufacture” within the meaning of the patent law, the court said:

That decision, so far from being authority for the contention of the plaintiff in error here, is rather to be reckoned against it; the intimation of the court clearly being that, if the structure had come within the definition of architecture, it would not have been patentable.

It is contended that the plaintiff in error should have been allowed the benefit of the presumption which arises from the issuance of a patent, and that he should have been permitted to adduce proof which, if brought into the case, might have altered the conviction of the court *326 that the invention was not patentable.' It is true that, in a case wheré there is doubt whether the patent involves invention or utility, the power of the court to pass upon its validity in advance of proofs which might be adduced to' sustain it should be exercised with - caution. But, as Mr. Justice Brown said in Richards v. Chase Elevator Co., 158 U. S. 299 , 15 Sup. Ct. 831, 39 L. Ed. 991 :

This was said in a case in which the patent was held void for want of novelty and invention. What was said is applicable with greater force in a case in which the pure question of law is presented whether the invention is or is not within the class of those which the law makes patentable.^ In such a case no light can come from testimony, and the court would be derelict in its duty if it deferred decision and compelled the parties to resort to the expense and incur the delay of adducing testimony which would in no way aid in elucidating the legal question presented.

The judgment is affirmed.