Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/829

 U. s., ETC., FELTING CO. V. ASBBSTOS FELTINfl <50. 815 �to it, and because no party haviag any interest in the Bau- mann patent was a party to said suit, and because the de- fendant had at that time no interest in the Baumann patent. The plaintiff put in evidence in this suit the record in one of the Massachusetts suits, — that against the Merrimack Manu- facturing Company, — under an objection by the defendant that it was incompetent. It appears by the proofs in this suit that the defendant supplied the oovering for boilers and pipes used by the defendant in the Massachusetts suit; that the president of the defendant employed the counsel who defended that suit ; and that the defendant paid for the serv- ices of said counsel. The record in the Massachusettes suit shows that that suit was brought on said patent No. 114,711, with other patents; that the answer in that suit sets forth that the things claimed in the Eiley patent were, before Kiley invented them, described in the said patent granted to Bau- mann, and known to and used by said Baumann ; and that the finding of the court was that the defendant had infringed the first and second claims of the Eiley patent. It is plain that the first claim of the Baumann patent interferes with the three claims of the Eiley patent. The relief to be given by the court, under section 4918 of the Eevised Statutes, in the case of interfering patents, is relief to be given on a de- termination of the question as to which one of the two pat- ents was the first invention of the interfering matters. A reference to section 4904 shows that interference means a dispute on the question of priority of invention. That is the dispute in this suit as b'etween Baumann and Eiley. That was the dispute in the Massachusetts suit as between Bau- mann and Eiley, the defendant in this suit having defended that suit, and set up in the answer therein that Eiley was not and that Baumann was the inventor of what is claimed in the Eiley patent. The issues were the same in the two suits. On the foregoing facts it must be held that the record in the Massachusetts suit is proper evidence in this suit, and that the judgment in that suit concludes the defendant on the question of priority of invention as between Baumann and Eiley, ����