Definition
COMBINATION carries two distinct legal meanings that operate in separate doctrinal domains.
1. Criminal / Labor Law. A union or confederation of persons formed to accomplish an unlawful purpose, or to accomplish a lawful purpose by unlawful means. Historically applied to worker associations formed to compel changes in wages, hours, or working conditions — conduct that was prosecuted as criminal conspiracy before labor relations law developed statutory frameworks. The term shades into, and was often used interchangeably with, conspiracy in older authorities.
2. Patent Law. The union of previously existing elements, machines, or processes into a single invention. A combination patent protects not the individual elements — which may already be known — but the novel, useful result produced by their joint operation. The doctrinal test: whether the combined elements produce a new and useful result, or achieve an old result in a cheaper or more advantageous way. A combination that merely assembles existing parts without producing such a result is not patentable.
COMBINATION IN RESTRAINT OF TRADE (sub-entry): A trust, pool, or association of two or more persons or corporations designed to suppress competition, fix prices, or otherwise restrain free trade. This usage bridges the criminal conspiracy meaning and the commercial law of monopoly, and became the central target of antitrust legislation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An act of combining, or the result of combining; also an association or alliance of people for some common purpose.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The result of combining or uniting; a union or alliance of persons or states to effect some purpose — usually in a bad sense. Webster's cites Shakespeare: "A solemn combination shall be made / Of our dear souls."
Editorial note: The common meaning of combination is broadly neutral — a combination lock, a mathematical combination, a combination of ingredients. The legal meanings are narrower and, particularly in criminal and labor law, carry a presumption of illegality that the ordinary word does not. Researchers encountering "combination" in nineteenth-century texts should not read it as a neutral term of aggregation; it almost certainly signals an allegation of conspiratorial or anticompetitive conduct.
Common Confusion
Combination vs. Conspiracy: In criminal and labor law, the terms were used interchangeably in older authorities, but they are not identical. A conspiracy typically requires a specific agreement and an overt act; combination was used more loosely to describe collective action — particularly by workers — regardless of whether a formal agreement was proven. Modern law largely abandoned combination in this sense, preferring conspiracy or, in the labor context, concerted activity. Researchers in pre-1900 sources must not assume that combination implies the full common law elements of conspiracy.
Combination vs. Combination Patent: The same word operates in patent law with no criminal connotation whatsoever. Context is the only guide. A treatise on patent law discussing "combination" is addressing the union of mechanical elements; a treatise on criminal law or labor relations is addressing collective human action.
Core Elements
For a patentable combination:
- Two or more previously existing elements, machines, or processes
- Their union produces a new and useful result, OR achieves an old result more cheaply or more advantageously
- The result must flow from the joint operation of the elements, not from any single element standing alone
- The combination itself — not the individual components — is the subject of the patent claim
Why It Matters in Research
The core research trap with combination is the false unity of the term. Because the same word appears in criminal law, labor law, patent law, and antitrust law, corpus searches will return results across all four domains simultaneously, and the doctrinal content is different in each.
In labor history research, combination is the period-accurate term for what later sources call a union, strike, or concerted activity. Pre-1890 sources — particularly English sources and early American cases — routinely prosecuted combinations of workers as criminal conspiracies. After the Sherman Antitrust Act (1890) and eventually the Clayton Act (1914) and the Norris-LaGuardia Act (1932), the legal landscape shifted dramatically, and combination as a term of criminality faded from American labor law. A researcher tracking labor rights will find sharp discontinuities depending on the period of the source.
In patent law, the combination doctrine was the subject of sustained nineteenth-century litigation over what distinguished a true combination (patentable) from a mere aggregation (not patentable). The aggregation doctrine — that a collection of parts producing no unified result is not a combination — appears throughout late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century patent cases and treatises and remains relevant background for reading older patent claims.
In antitrust research, combination in restraint of trade is the direct ancestor of the Sherman Act's language and the predecessor vocabulary to monopoly, trust, and cartel. Understanding combination unlocks the legislative history and early case law of American antitrust doctrine.
Jurisdictional note: The criminal combination concept arrived in American law from English common law and was applied unevenly across states. Some states codified it; others treated worker combinations under general conspiracy statutes. English sources and American sources from the same period may use the term similarly but with different procedural and substantive implications.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries agree on the bipartite structure of the term — criminal/labor on one side, patent on the other — but weight the two meanings differently depending on the era of the source.
Burrill, the oldest authority, gives equal weight to both meanings and cites Mason's Reports and Curtis's Reports for the patent dimension. Rapalje & Lawrence follows the same dual structure cleanly.
Bouvier is notable for flagging labor law explicitly, acknowledging that the term "has become prominent of late in reference to labor troubles" and linking it to the definition of a strike. This is a useful period marker: Bouvier's entry reflects the late nineteenth-century moment when labor combination was at the center of legal controversy.
Black's (both editions) leads with the criminal definition — "a conspiracy, or confederation of men for unlawful or violent deeds" — before addressing patents. Black's 2nd edition adds the combination in restraint of trade sub-entry, reflecting the post-Sherman Act environment.
Anderson's focuses almost entirely on patent law and provides the most substantive doctrinal content on the combination patent test, including the requirement that elements produce a new and useful result by their joint action and that limitations imposed by the inventor be construed strictly against him.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss: none of them traces the trajectory of the labor law meaning into the twentieth century or notes its obsolescence as a term of criminal law. A researcher relying solely on these sources would not know that combination as applied to workers is now a historical term, not active doctrine.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
For the combined ratings methodology in veterans disability law (a technical use of combination in a regulatory rather than criminal or patent context): VA Disability Compensation — Service Connection, Disability Ratings, and the Combined Rating System (The Law Mind Military, Veterans & Admiralty Law Encyclopedia, military_18)