Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/736

 723 FEDERAL REPORTER. �foUo^ing a patent for the same was issued to him for the term of 17 years. Soon afcerwards Bandmann assigned his interest to the complainant, the Giant Powder Company, a corporation created under the laws of Califomia; and in October, 1873, this company surrendered the patent and ob- tained re-issued letters for the residu e of tho term. In March, 1874, this re-issue was also surrendered, and new Jettera patent were issued, for the infringement of which the present suit is brought. The bill alleges that the surrender of the original letters, the iirst re-issue, its surrender, and the second re-issue were each made for "good and lawful cause;" butit does not specify what that cause was. The allegation will, however, be taken to be that the cause was one for which the statute authorized a surrender and a re-issue. The bill also alleges that each re-issue was for the same invention described in the original patent. �The answer denies both of these allegations, and avers that the original letters and the first re-issue were not surrendered because they were invalid by reason of a defective and insuf- ficient specification arising from inadvertence, accident, or mistake, without any fraudulent intention on the part of the patentees, and charges that they were surrendered upon false representations, with the intent to interpolate and obtain, in re-issued letters, claims and grants for more than was em- braced by the invention of Nobel described in the original patent, and that the re-issued letters were not for the same invention, but for another and different one. And the defend- ants insist that for this and other reasons the re-issued letters are invalid. �On the argument the counsel of the complainant statedthat ihe second re-issue was obtained to correct a, clerical error in the desôription of the grantee, and that it does not differ in its specifications from the first re-issue, so that practically there is but one re-issue in the case. So treating the matter, the question presented to us àt the outset relates to the validity •of this re-issue. �The act of congress of 1870, embodied in the Eevised Stat- ■utes, (under which the re-issue was granted,) provides that ����