The Law Dictionary

Your Free Online Legal Dictionary • Featuring Black’s Law Dictionary, 2nd Ed.

DEVICE Definition & Legal Meaning

Definition & Citations:

An Invention or contrivance; any result of desigu; as iu the phrase”gambling device,” which means a machine or contrivance of any kind for the playing ofan unlawful game of chance or hazard. State v. Blackstoue, 115 Mo. 424, 22 S. W. 370.Also, a plan or project; a scheme to trick or deceive; a stratagem or artifice; as in thelaws relating to fraud and cheating. State v. Smith, 82 Minn. 342, 85 N. W. 12. Also anemblem, pictorial representation, or distinguishing mark or sign of any kind; as in thelaws prohibiting the marking of ballots used in public elections with “any device.” Baxterv. Ellis, 111 N. C. 124, 15 S. E. 938, 17 L. R. A. 382; Owens v. State, 04 Tex. 509;Steele v. Calhoun, 61 Miss. 556.In a statute against gaming devices, this term is to be understood as meaningsomething formed by design, a contrivance, an invention. It is to be distinguished from”substitute,” which means something put in the place of another tiling, or used insteadof something else. Henderson v. State, 59 Ala. 91.In patent law. A plan or contrivance, or an application, adjustment, shaping, or combinationof materials or members, for the purpose of accomplishing a particular resultor serving a particular use, chiefly by mechanical means and usually simple in characteror not highly complex, but involving the exercise of the Inventive faculty.

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