Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 3.djvu/579

 573 FBDEBAIi BBPOETEB. �patent-office, and proof of it filed in this court, and decree thereupon entered that the defendants should account to the orator for the profits which this money in their hands repre- sented, they had fuU knowledge of the orator's right to the money, as those rights are considered in this court, and de- tained the money against his right, and should be charged with interest upon it. Steam Stone-cutter Go. v. Windsor Manv/'g Co. Dist. Vt., May term, 1879. The proof was filed and the decree entered on the same day, so there is no ques- tion as to whether interest should begin to run from one date ûr the other in this case. �The right of the orator to costs depends -wholly upon the provisions of the statute. They are a creature of statutes, and were not recoverable at ail at common la-w^. This suit could not have been maintained at ail but for the provisions of section 4922, Eev. St., allowing a disclaimer of what would otherwise defeat the patent. If the disclaimer is filed before suit, the case stands, as to costs, like any other case for infringement ; but, -where the disclaimer is not filed until after suit, although that may not prevent a decree or judg- ment for the plaintiff, the statute is express that, in every such case in which a judgment or decree shall be rendered for the plaintiiï, no costs shall be recovered. The provision is not that no costs shall be recovered until after disclaimer, but it is as extensive as the whole existence of the case, and prohibits the recovery of any costs at ail in the case. �Other questions have been debated to some estent, and considered, but they either relate to questions of fact disposed of by the master upon warrantable evidence before him, or are not oontrolling upon any decisive feature of the case, and no further notice of them is thought to be necessary. �It follows that the orator is entitledto a decree for the pay- ment to him, by the defendants, of the sum of $149,039, with interest thereon from the fourth day of December, 1878. �The foregoing decision embodies the concurring views of the circuit judge and the district judge before whom the case bas been heard. �The exceptions are respectively overruled and sustained ����