Читать книгу Intellectual Property Law for Engineers, Scientists, and Entrepreneurs - Howard B. Rockman - Страница 94

This case involved a patent on the cigarette lighter commonly found in automobiles. The prior art against which the obviousness of this cigarette lighter was tested comprised two patents, one covering a wireless or cordless cigarette lighter for a car, and another covering an electric lighter for cigars and cigarettes with a thermostatic control. The device of the patent in question added to the so‐called wireless or cordless lighter a thermostatic control responsive to the temperature of the heating coil, which automatically returned the plug to its off position after the heating coil had reached a predetermined maximum temperature. The plug was then manually removed from the dashboard of the car to light the smoking material. When replaced in the socket after use, the cigarette lighter was held in an open circuit position until next needed.

The Court held that the thermostatic controls of a heating unit operating to cut off an electric current energizing the unit when its temperature had reached its desired point were well known when the patentee made his invention. The Court held that the advance of the inventor over the thermostatically controlled electric lighter was the use of the removable plug bearing the heating unit, which plug was shown in the other prior art patent to establish the automatic control circuit. The Court said the question was whether it was invention (or non‐obvious) to apply the automatic circuit of one patent to the removable heating unit in substitution for a circuit manually controlled as shown by another patent. The Court in this case held that, if an “improvement” is to obtain the privileged position of a patent, more ingenuity must be involved than the work of a mechanic skilled in the art.

The Court recognized that the principles set forth in the Hotchkiss v. Greenwood case applied to the adaptation or combination of old or well‐known devices for new uses. However, the Court went on to say that “the new device, however useful it may be, must reveal the flash of creative genius, not merely the skill of the calling.” In this case, the court went on to say that the patent in question did not reach this level of inventive flash of genius. The so‐called inventor merely incorporated the well‐known thermostat into the old wireless lighter to produce a more efficient, useful, and convenient article. A new application of an old device may not be patented if the result claimed as new is the same in character as the original result. The use of a thermostat to break a circuit in a “wireless” cigar lighter is analogous to, or the same in character as, the use of such a device in electric heaters, toasters, or irons, whatever may be the difference in detail of design. Ingenuity was required to effect the adaptation, but no more than that to be expected of a mechanic skilled in the art. Then, the Court went on to say, rather poetically: “Strict application of that test is necessary lest in the constant demand for new appliances the heavy hand of tribute be laid on each slight technical logical advance in an art.”