In re Perrigo

Name

In re Perrigo

Cite

48 F.2d 965

Year

1931

Bluebook cite

In re Perrigo, 48 F.2d 965 (C.C.P.A. 1931).

Author

URL

48 F.2d 965

Item Type

case

Summary

Appeal from a decision of the Patent Office Board of Appeals rejecting claims for a “Method and Apparatus for Accumulating and Transforming Ether Electric Energy.” The claims were rejected for lack of utility as a result of inoperativeness. The court, noting that the specification was “not comprehensible” and did not conform to any known scientific or engineering principle, affirmed the rejection. The court wrote that for an alleged invention to be patentable, it must be “useful, and . . . must appear capable of doing the things claimed in order to be a device of practical utility.” The court further noted that “the rule of doubt may only be applied in favor of an applicant where the doubt is a reasonable one, that is, one founded in reason and engendered by testing the alleged invention by known scientific laws and principles.” Stating that there must be “definiteness,” rather than a mere possibility of usefulness, the court prohibited the patenting of theories and “intellectual speculations embodied in devices incapable of scientific analysis.” Thus, the court held that the applicant had failed to demonstrate the utility of the invention.

Excerpts and Summaries

Created

Thursday 28 of August, 2008 22:46:13 GMT
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LastModif

Friday 05 of September, 2008 20:04:39 GMT
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