Egbert v. Lippmann
Egbert v. Lippmann, 104 U.S. 333 (1881), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that public use of an invention bars the patenting of it. The Court's ruling was colored by its view that the inventor had forfeited his right to patent the invention by "sleeping on his rights" while others commercialized the technology. Background Facts Samuel Barnes designed "corset-steels", which were vertically disposed springs to stiffen a corset. Samuel made the invention in 1855 after he had been present while two women, his "intimate friend," Frances Willis, and her friend, Miss Cugier, were "complaining of the breaking of their corset steels." Samuel devised a stronger device using two pieces of metal fastened together to create a doubled, reinforced corset steel. He then gave the springs to Frances, who would in 1863 become his wife and later the executrix of his will. In 1858 he gave her another set of steels, which she used for a long time. In 1863, Samuel and Frances showed the invention to his friend Joseph Sturgis; and in March 1866 Samuel applied for a patent. Samuel died a month after the patent issued in July 1866. Frances remarried in 1870 and became Frances Egbert. Subsequently, Frances, as Samuel's executrix and owner of the patent, sued for patent infringement. Proceedings in lower court Frances Egbert sued Phillip Lippmann and August Seligmann in the Southern District of New York. Circuit Judge Blatchford tried the case and held the patent invalid because of public use. He ruled: It was not a use for experiment, or a use in private or a private use. It was a practical use in public of the completed article [despite its concealment and invisibility within the corset]. No secrecy was maintained or enjoined as to the article or its structure. Frances appealed the judgment to the Supreme Court. Ruling of Supreme Court Majority opinion Justice William Burnham Woods wrote for the majority, explaining that public use of the invention by only one person is sufficient to be considered a public use, even where the usage of the invention is not visible to the general public. Similarly, a gift to another party without regard to secrecy or restrictions on use is sufficient to bar a patent for the same reason. Whether the use of an invention is public use or private use "does not necessarily depend on the number of persons to whom its use is known." Rather: "If an inventor, having made his device, gives or sells it to another, to be used by the donee or vendee without limitation or restriction or injunction of secrecy and it is so used, such use is public even though the use and knowledge of the use may be confined to one person." It is a public use because "[s}he might have exhibited them to any person, or made other steels of the same kind and used or sold them without violating any condition or restriction imposed on her by