Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/633

 ■wiiiSON i;. cooN. 621 �of by its own facts. General observations by a judge or a court, in deciding a case, must always be read in view of the facts of the case that waa sub judiee, and are not necessarily authoritative, ex vi termini, in another case where the facts are not the same, although entitled to consideration, as are the views of a text-writer of experience and repute. This case of RusseU v. Dodge is often cited, as it bas been in the present case, as authority for the proposition that where the claim of a patent is valid, and the descriptive part of the specification is sufficient to support it, the patent cannot be re-issued, The re-issue in that case was invalid for other reasons assigned, and the case does not lay down the above proposition, nor does any case yet decided by the supreme court announce such a proposition to be the law. It will be a sad day for inventors and patentees -vrhen the highest tri- bunal does make an authoritative decision to that effect in those terms. Large numbers of patents have been re-issued and sustained in suits, and vast sums of money have been iuvested and expended in reliance on the re-issues, where they wete worthless if the fact that the clailrts of the original patents were valid and sustainable, on the descriptions and drawings appended to them, rendered the re-issues iiivalid. �In Powder Co. v. Powder Works, 98 U. S. 126, the original patent was for different processes iahd appliances for explod- ing nitro-glycerine, while the ire-issues "were for compositions of matter. The supi'eme court held that the processes de- scribed in ihe original had no connection vrith the compounds patented in the re-issues; that they were not processes for making thoso compounds ; that, in describing the processes, the compounds were not mentioned; and that the invention of the one did not involve the invention of the other. �In Bail V. Langles, 18 0. G. 1405, recently decided by the supreme court, the original specifications and drawings showed an oven so constructed that the products of com- bustion did not and could not pass directly into it. In the re-issue the oven was made a part of the passage-way for the products of combustion, and it was held bad. �In the present case the original specification describes the ��� �