Samuel Taylor Pty Ltd v SA Brush Co Ltd [1950] HCA 44

High Court of Australia Latham C.J. McTiernan and Webb JJ. Samuel Taylor Pty Ltd v SA Brush Co Ltd [1950] HCA 44

ORDER Appeal dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Nov. 13 Latham C.J.

The appellant, Samuel Taylor Pty. Ltd., is the assignee of Australian letters patent No. 106694 in respect of improvements in or connected with brooms, brushes and the like. The company threatened proceedings against the respondent, S.A. Brush Company Ltd., for infringement of the patent. The latter company then took proceedings for alleged groundless threats of legal proceedings under s. 91A of the Patents Act 1903-1946. The appellant counterclaimed, alleging infringement of the patent, and the respondent in reply alleged that the patent was invalid, raising most of the objections to the validity of a patent, namely, not a manner of new manufacture, not new, prior publication, not useful, no improvement, no invention, specification insufficient to enable the alleged invention properly to be carried into effect. In the Supreme Court of South Australia Abbott J. held against these objections except in relation to the first objection, which was that the subject matter of the patent was not a manner of new manufacture, and the last objection based on insufficiency of directions in the specification to enable the alleged invention to be carried into effect. The appellant appeals to this Court, contending that the patent is valid. The respondent has repeated in this Court and supported by argument most of the objections to the patent which were taken in the Supreme Court.

The patentees in Great Britain were Beechwood Ltd. and E. A. Woodcock. The patent was granted in Australia under s. 121 of the Patents Act 1903-1921. The complete specification stated that the invention related to "wood-headed sweeping brooms or brushes, in which long bristles, hairs, fibres or mixture of these are employed, and has for its object to improve the construction of such class of brush so as to cheapen the cost of production". The evidence showed that brooms had, since time immemorial, been made by inserting bound tufts of bristles or hair &c. into holes bored in wooden stocks or heads, the tufts being held in position by being forced into the holes and by the use of some cement or other sticky material. The invention claimed relates to a broom having the following characteristics—(1) long bristles as distinct from short bristles; (2) a wood stock or head; (3) a recess formed in the stock; (4) arranging the bristles, &c. with their roots or thick ends at one end; (5) securing the roots or thick ends of the bristles, &c. within the recess by cement, rubber or like filling the recess; (6) it was stated that the bristles &c. might be formed into separate tufts or not (e.g. they might be arranged in rows) as desired.