Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/147

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TINKER V. WILBER EUREKA M. & R. MANUF'G CO.
139

ment and location of the rollers and shoes referred to in the claim could only be placing the rollers in front of the finger bar, and the rollers and shoes within the courses of the wheels so as to carry the finger bar there, and could not have referred to placing the rollers in advance of the shoes. They were the arrangement and location therein described, and the location of the rollers in advance of the shoes was not therein described. The drawing could and should be looked at, if necessary, in order to explain an ambiguous or doubtful specification, and to make the invention capable of being understood and used. Curtis on Pat. § 262. Hogg v. Emerson, 6 How. 437. But it cannot supply an entire want of any part of a specification or claim in a suit upon a patent, although it might afford ground for a reissue covering the part shown by it. U. S. Rev. St. § 4916. That the specfication was not intended to cover rollers wholly in advance of the shoes to roll down the grass in their tracks, is evident from the fact that no mention is made of that purpose, nor of doing away with a projection of the shoes ahead of the rollers, which had sometimes been used to divide the grass, nor of a broad tread to the wheels, or any other arrangement calculated to roll down the grass. These things are not referred to in any supposition that it was necessary for the inventor to specify ail the uses to which his invention could be put in order to cover them, but for the purpose of ascertaining what invention was in fact specified and covered for any use. There is no doubt but that, as argued for the orator, the patent would give an exclusive right to the patented invention for all uses to which it could be put, whether contemplated by the inventor, or discovered by himself or others afterwards. Roberts v. Ryer, 91 U. S. 150. But the invention must in some way be covered by the patent before he can acquire an exclusive right to it for any purpose.

Although Tinker constructed rollers in advance of the shoes so they would roll down the grass, and without anything before them that would divide the grass and prevent it being rolled, he does not appear to have apprehended what their utility would be in preventing tangling of the grass over the