Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/334

 826 FESEBAL EEPOBTEB. �standing said Page's invention may bave been descrîbed or in use prior" to bis application of February, 1864, and doea not declare that it shall be valid, although Dr. Page might bave» before said application, abandoned bis inventions to the public ; and that, if it did so declare, it would be void. It is urged that Dr. Page, by withdrawing his application of Feb- ruary, 1854, abandoned bis inventions to the public. A con- sideration of ail the language of the act, taken together, shows that oongress intended to say, and said, that Dr. Page should have a patent whioh «hould be valid, if he Vas the first in- venter of the inventions in question, notwithstanding ail that bad taken place in regard to the prior description by Dr. Page of the inventions; and in regord to their use prior to his for- mer application, and in regard to such former application. The f act of the -withdrawal of the application was necessarily known, as it was a public record. That application had been rejected solely on the ground of the use by the public of the invention, with his presumed consent. No other form of abandonment was alleged, and none other is now alleged, except the withdrawal of the first application. Congress bas a right to secure to an inventer the exclusive right to his invention for a limited time. It bas no right to deprive any person of his property without due process of law. In the act in question it is provided that "any person in possession of said apparatus prior to the date of said patent shall possess the right to use and vend, to others to use the said specifie apparatus in his possession, without liability to the inventor, patentee, or any other person interested in said invention or patent therefor." So far as Dr. Page's right to obtain a patent was alïected by his presumed consent to the public use of his inventions, or by his withdrawal of his first application, con- gress had full power, if he was the first inventor of those inven- tions, to exercise its sovereign power of waiving any obstacle arising from such consent, or from such withdrawal, by exempt- ing Dr". Page from the operation of the general statutory ruie. But neither such consent nor such withdrawal operated to vest in any one a right, as against the patent finally granted to Dr. Page, to use his inventions after the granting of such patent. ��� �