AGGREGATION

aggregation.Patents. 1. A set of  parts that  do not cooperate in structure or function, and are

therefore unpatentable as an invention; the opposite of a combination. [Cases: Patents    25. C.J.S.

Patents § 86.] 2.Hist. A patent examiner’s label for a claimed invention that may or may not be a

patentable  combination  but  whose  claims  do  not  clearly  explain  how  the  parts  cooperate  to

produce a new or unexpected result. • As a term of art, aggregation lost its usefulness when it was

replaced by a statutory test in § 103 of the Patent Act of 1952. — Also termed juxtaposition. Cf.

COMBINATION (4).

“I think of a football team as a combination; one passes, one receives, another runs, and still

others hold the line. Eleven men are doing different things, each in his own way, and not always

simultaneously; yet they are working to a common end,  to advance the ball; and they coact as a

unit. I think of a track team as an aggregation; one runs, another hurdles, another jumps, another

throws. They all work for a common general end, to amass points for their alma mater; but there is

lacking the vital spark of cooperation or coordination. They work, not as one unit, but as several.”

Skinner v. Oil, 54 F.2d 896, 898–99 (10th Cir. 1931).

“The mere combining of old machine parts, each operating in the old way and accomplishing

the old result, is an aggregation, and hence unpatentable; whereas, if a new result be produced by

the  joint  action  of  the  elements,  and  if  such  a  result  be  not  the  mere  adding  together  of  the

contributions  of  the  separate  elements,  then  there  exists  a  patentable  combination.”  Roger

Sherman Hoar, Patent Tactics and the Law 38 (3d ed. 1950). [Blacks Law 8th]