Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/333

 PAGS F. HOLMKS BUEGLAE ALARM TELEGEAPH 00. 325 �paratus, is a description of an apparatus of Prof. Boito, which i« adduced to affect the novelty of daims 11 and 12. Little need be said about it. The description is too vague and uncertain to entitle it to any weight. The defendant's ex- pert, Mr. Eenwiek, makes no allusion to it. �The MaGauley description is adduced against the thirteenth claim, but it is not sufficiently explicit, �There is nothing to aflfect the novelty of the eleventh, twelfth or thirteenth claims in any of the prior publications adduced in evidence. • �The Morse model, with its placard, proves nothing of itself, and there is not a partiole of legal evidence as to when it was made or by whom. �The answer of Dr. Page to the ninth interrogatory to him in the suit of Frenchy. Rogers isof no force. It relates solely to certain adaptations made by Prof. Morse to a long or main circuit, for telegraphing purposes. Such is the purport of ail the interrogatories. �It is contended, for the defendant, that the act of March 19, 1868, is unconstitutional and void. One groimd urged is that as Dr. Page was, by section 2 of the act of July 4, 1836, (5 U. S. St. at Large, 118,) disqualified, while an employe in the patent office, from acquirîng an interest in a patent, he necessarily, as a consideration for becoming such employe dedicated to the public, on becoming such employe, ail inventions which he had previously made, and could not afterwards reclaim them. The soundness of this proposition cannot be admitted. The second section of the act of 1836 does not declare that a person taking employment in the patent office shall be held to have forfeited or dedicated to the public thereby any invention before made by him. It simply prevents him from acquiring an interest in a patent while he remains such employe. But, as soon as his employ- ment ceases, he is in the same position, so far as any effect of the mere fact of his having been in such employment is con- eerned, as if he had never been in such employment. �It is contended that the act of March 19, 1868, declares only that the patent to be granted "shall be valid, not with- ��� �