Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/734

 720 FEDEEAL EEPOBTEE. �creditor proceeded at his own hazard. If the debtor escaped the bankruptcy court for the prescribed time, the preference or lien remained valid. If he did not, it is void ahsolutely." �And the judgment of the supreme court in Doe y. Childers, 21 Wall. 643, is strongly in the same direction, although it be an implication, rather than a direct utterance. The decis- ion there was that an attachment, laid more than four months previously to the proceedings in bankruptcy begun, continued a valid lien, and was not dissolved by the transfer of the bankrupt estate to the assignee. �But the court, in reaching that conclusion, say: "Under the fourteenth section (§ 5044 of Eev. St.) of the bankrupt act, the title pendente lite is transferred by operation of law from the bankrupt to the assignee in bankruptcy. The con- veyance of the register operates as would, under ordinary circumstances, the deed of a person having the title, with two differences : First, it relates back to the commencement of the bankruptcy proceeding; secondly, the register's conveyance dissolves any attachment that has been made within four months previous to the commencement of the bankrupt pro- ceedings." �The title of the complainant failing, and the law requiring him to stand upon the strength of his own title, rather than the weakness of his adversaries, the bili of complaint must be dismissed, with costs. ���GlANT POWDBB CoMPANY V. CaLIFORNIA ViGORIT PoWDKB �Company and others. {Circuit Court, D. Galifornia., 1880.) �Re-Issue— Rbv. 8t. § 4916. — Section 4916 of the Revised Statutes only- autliorizes a re-issue wlien, from an unintentional error in the desrip- tion of the invention, the patent is invalid or inoperative, or when the claim of the patentee exceeds his invention. �Bamb — CoMMissioj^BB OF PATENTS — Jdeisdiction. — The power to ac- cept a surrender and issue new letters is vested exclusively in the comtnissioner of patents, and his decision in such cases is not open to collateral attack in a suit for the infringement of re-isaued letters. ����