Am.  Tour.  Pharm. 
July,  1 918. 
Product  Patents. 
517 
with  the  impression  that  a  patent  can  be  had  on  some  disembodied 
ghost  of  a  "  product " ;  and  then  he  comes  around  and  bothers  me 
with  his  mental  nebulosities. 
The  statute  under  which  we  work  says  nothing  about  a  product, 
but  it  does  define  as  patentable  "  any  new  and  useful  art,  machine, 
manufacture  or  composition  of  matter."  Four  statutory  classes  are 
established  and  anything  patentable  must  be  included  in  one  of  these 
four  classes.  An  "  art "  is  a  process  or  method :  a  way  of  doing 
things ;  and  it  always  results  in  a  product.  This  product  may  be  a 
machine  or  a  manufacture  or  a  composition  of  matter.  It  is  not 
patentable  unless  it  is  one  of  the  three.  Conversely,  any  machine, 
or  any  manufacture  or  any  composition  of  matter  is  a  product ;  it  is 
a  product  of  some  "art."  A  process  may  be  novel  and  the  product 
old,  as  in  a  new  way  of  making  flapjacks ;  or  both  the  process  and 
the  product  may  be  new.  In  the  latter  event  the  process  and  the 
product  may  be,  and  usually  are,  the  result  of  the  same  mental  in- 
ventive act ;  but  since  they  are  in  separate  statutory  classes  they  are, 
legally,  different  inventions  and  must  be  separately  patented ;  either 
as  different  claims  in  the  same  patent  or  as  claims  in  separate  pat- 
ents— the  product,  of  course,  being  claimed  as  what  it  is,  as  a  ma- 
chine or  a  manufacture  or  a  composition.  Being  separate  inven- 
tions, each  must  stand  on  its  own  legs ;  and  the  patentability  of  the 
one  is  in  no  way  affected  by  the  patentability  of  the  other.  No 
matter  whether  the  product  is  a  machine,  or  an  article,  or  a  compo- 
sition, to  be  patentable  it  must  be  novel  in  and  of  itself,  and  irre- 
spective of  any  novelty  in  the  process  by  which  it  is  produced.  A 
composition  may  be  a  mechanical  mixture  or  a  chemical  compound ; 
and  it  may  be  novel  because  things  are  brought  together  which  were 
never  brought  together  before,  or  because  they  are  assembled  in  a 
new  way  (as  in  a  coated  granule)  or  because,  though  old  in  make-up, 
the  composition  is  in  a  new  condition  or  state ;  because  it  has  some 
different  form,  or  characteristic,  or  property.  It  does  not  matter 
wherein  the  novelty  resides  as  long  as  the  composition  is  new  and 
useful.  But  if  it  is  new,  then  the  novelty  must  be  capable  of  being 
pointed  out  in  some  way ;  there  must  be  a  test  or  a  characteristic 
which  can  be  utilized  to  show  that  the  alleged  new  composition  is 
indeed  new ;  it  may  be  because  it  is  pink,  or  is  soluble  in  alcohol,  or 
has  a  particular  melting  point  or  almost  anything.  If  there  is  no 
test  and  no  characteristic  which  will  differentiate  it  from  an  old 
thing  which  the  public  has  the  right  to  use,  then  it  is  the  same  as  the 
