d,
or he may have designed a new counter or a new oil-cup or a new power
transmission, or even a new motor, and have given his invention this
elaborate setting. The shears, the counter, the oil-cup, the power
transmission, and the motor are separately classifiable in widely
separated classes. How shall the application be diagnosed for
determining its place in the office classification? When the
specification and drawing disclose (as most of them do) several subjects
matter of invention, though claiming only one, which of those several
subjects matter shall control the classification?

The most natural procedure, at first thought, would be to classify on
the totality of the showing, in which case the application for the
nail-machine, supposed above, would be assigned to nail-making. But
imagine the invention claimed by an applicant to be the counter. Then
the examiner in charge of nail-making would have to search the class of
registers with which he is not familiar. Suppose applicant No. 2 files
an application for the same counter which he illustrates and describes
in connection with a bottle-filling machine, and that, classifying on
the totality of the showing, this goes to the division that has the
class of packaging liquids. Now both the examiners in charge of
bottle-filling and nail-making, knowing that counters are classified in
registers, search the class of registers and also the pending
applications in registers. After these examiners have made their
searches, suppose applicant No. 3 files an application for the same
counter, which he says may be used for counting small articles produced
by automatic machines. Perhaps he shows the counter attached to a piece
of conventional mechanism representing any manufacturing machine,
mentioning, say, a cigarette or pill or cartridge-making machine. It has
not occurred to either the the examiner of nail-making or the examiner
of bottle-filling that the other might have any such application; nor
does it occur to the examiner in charge of registers to search
nail-making or bottle-filling. As the specification of the counter
application mentions cigarette, pill, and cartridge-making machines to
which the counter may be attached, the examiner in charge of registers
may search those classes. Suppose that the counter proves to be new, and
each of the three examiners allows a patent. Here now are three patents
for the same thing. Of course, after allowance, the counter and all
oth