Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/345

 888 FEDEBAIi BIEPOBTEB. �MvTsaos V. The Mator, Etc., op New Tose. (Circuit Comt, S. JD. New York. June 15, 1880.) �1. Patent No. 63,419— PatentabHiITt. — A bond and coupon register.ln �the form of a bock, is a legal subject for a patent. �2. Infkingbmbîit — Liabilitt of a City. — A city is liable in its corporate �capacity for the Infringement of a patent. MUn, V. Tht Mayor, C. C. 8. D. N. Y., followed. �In Equity. �Royal S. Crane, for plaintiff. �Frederick H. Betts, for defendant. �WnEELER, D. J. This suit is upon a patent to the plain- iiff, numbered 63,419, and dated April 2, 1867, for a bond and coupon register. The defendant sets up and insista that this register is not a subject for a patent within the law; ihat the invention was tendered to and used by William E. Warren and John O'Brien before the plaintiff' s invention ; and that it is not liable for the infringement shown. �The principal argument upon the first point rests upon the «laim that the register should have been copyrighted instead of being patented, and Drury v, Ewing, 1 Bond, 540, is much relied upon to support that proposition. A copyright is a right to copy merely, as the word imports, and covers only the multiplication of copies. Perris v. Hexamer, 99 U. S. 674; Baker v. Selden, S. C. U. S., Oct. 7, 1879, Alb. Law J., Feb. 28, 1880, p. 168. The plaintiff's invention is of a book with a page, or pages, spaced for each bond and its coupons of any series of coupon bonds, and with the spaces numbered and designated to show what bonds and coupons they are for, while any of them are outstanding, and for receiving them for safe-keeping as vouchers, or memoranda, when any of them are taken up or paid. The plan is the same for regis- ters for different bonds of a series, and for different series of bonds, but the registers are not copies of one another, and the right to multiply copies would afford no protection at ail. �In Drury y. Evnng there might be multiplication of copies ����