In the District Court of the United States, for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the United States of America, petitioner, vs. Motion Picture Patents Company, et al., defendants (1914)

Record Details:

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Petitioner's Exhibit No. 203. 2513 tion involved invention, as distingui&licd from ordinary mechanical skill. If it is new only in the sense that it embodies and represents superior workmanship, or is an improvement upon an old article in degree and excellence, within all authorities the claim is invalid. * * * * Length of Film Xot Defined. "'By the terms of the claim the length of the film is not defined, nor is the number of photographs wJvich it is to represent defined. It is to be an unbroken, transparent or translucent, tape-like photographic film; it is to have thereon equi-distant photographs of successive positions of an object in motion; these photographs are to be arranged in a continuous, straight-line sequence, and the number of them is not limited, save by the length of the film. The film was not new, and if the other characteristics of the product are not new, or are new only in the sense that they add to the article merely a superiority of finish, or a greater accuracy of detail, the claim is destitute of patentable novelty. "'In view of these proceedings, and the acquiescence of the patentee in the limitations imposed upon the claim by the patent office, its novelty depends mainly upon the length of the film. This feature of the claim is satisfied by any film which is long enough to carry a sufficient number of successive pictures to reproduce, when properly used, some definite cycle of movements to convey the impression of reality to the observer. A film having this characteristic was not new, in the sense that its production involved invention. The Du Cos (patented in 1864) apparatus teas capable of taking the requisite number of pictures in series suitable for using in an exhibiting apparatus. Prof. Morton, the expert for the complainant (Edison) in his testimony, conceded that a series of photograplis of an object in motion could have been taken upon a paper strip by the camera of the certificate of addition of the Du Cos patent, and these negatives might have been transferred to a translucent paper strip, as a series of positives and that it would require no invention, in view of the instructions which Du Cos gives as to doing this, to prepare such a strip of paper with a series of pictures upon it. He differentiates the film of the claim from the film which