O'Reilly v. Morse
United States Supreme Court
56 U.S. 62 (1854)
Relevant factsFree
Morse's telegraph patent specification described only his specific telegraph machinery, but his eighth claim asserted ownership over any future invention using electromagnetism to print characters at a distance, regardless of the machinery's design, and O'Reilly sued to challenge the scope of that broad claim.
IssueFree
Whether a patentee may claim ownership of inventions or processes that he has not described and disclosed in the specification portion of his patent application.