Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/604

 592 FEDERAL REPORTBR. �product patents, and thus to guard himself against the dan- ger and loss that might arise from others using the process to accomplish other resulta, or securing the product by the agency of other means and instrumentalities. �Two reasons were foroibly presented by the learned counsel for the defendant why the act should not have the above interpretation : (1) Because it was asking the court, by judi- cial construction, to extend the mqnopoly and life of a patent for two years beyond the time prescribed by the law; (2) because the machine patent having expired, and belonging to the public, it was a contradiction in terms to hold that its use could be restrained on the ground that by its use other patents were infringed. These reasons need not be consid- ered separately, and I think the difficulties which they sug- gest grow out of a misapprehension of what the court is supposed, in fact, to do in the case, The argument was that if an inventor procures a patent for a machine, and, after holding it for any length of time less than two years, is per- mitted, without the surrender of the original and a re-issue, to apply for a patent for the process employed, and the product obtained from the use of the machine, and then, after the expiration of the machine patent, may restrain its use by the public untU the process and product patents run out, it is practically extending the life of the first patent, and giving the owner a monopoly beyond the period of time to which the law in express terms limited it. �But the court does not propose to restrain generally the use of the machine but only such unlawf ul use of it as infringes the vested rights of others. As long as separate patents for a machine, and the process and the product, are allowable, they represent distinct inventions, (Kelleher v. Darling, 14 0. G. 673,) and each one may live, without interference or molestation, its whole life without regard to the death of the others. While the product patent continues in existence, the manufacture of the product by any instrumentality is prohib- iied, and it is no answer to the charge of infringement to say : "I had the right to use the particular mechanism by which I obtained the product." ����