Did You Know...

The “Mason Jar” Case, He Who Hesitates Is Lost...

In the 1876 case Consolidated Fruit Jar Company  v. Wright, the Consolidated Fruit Jar Company alleged other jar manufacturers were infringing its patent on Mason jars and requested the Court forbid their competitors from selling their versions of the jar. The Court refused, reasoning that, because the Mason jar was not patented for almost a decade after its creation and introduction to the marketplace, the original inventor “acquire[d] no title, and his invention or discovery...is lost to him.”