Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/738

 726 FEDERAL EBPORTEB. �of the Eeyised Statutes, and alleged that the eomplainants owned a patent, granted to them December 24, 1872, as assignees of one L. D. Benner, for an improvement in paper bags, of which Benner was the original and first inventer; that the defendants held a patent, dated February 20, 1872, for an improvement alleged to have been invented by Luther C. Crowell; that the patents interfered; and the eomplain- ants prayed that the defendants' patent might be declared void. The answer denied that Benner was the prier inventer of the improvement patented to the eomplainants; insisted that Crowell was the inventer of that held by the defendants ; neither confessed ner denied the interference; but concluded with the prayer that the eomplainants' patent should be ad- judged void. The court eonsidered the issues upon these pleadings, and, on a comparison of the specifications of the two patents, held that they described and claimed the same invention, and that Crowell was the true and first inventor; thus reversing the judgment of the patent-office, which had deelared an interference, examined the case, and decided in favor of Benner. The deeree passed by the court declared the defendants' patent to be good and valid, and the eom- plainants' to be void. �The only other case, involving a construction of the section under consideration, that I have been able to find, is that of Foster v. Lindsay, 3 Dill. 126, in which Judge Treat, sitting in the circuit court for the eastern district of Missouri, ex- pressly held that the section vested the power in the court to adjudge.either of the interfering patents void, in whele or in part, and also authorized a deeree that both patents were void, The learned judge found a support to bis opinion in fhe allusion made by the supreme court in Mowry v. Whitney, 14 Wall. 440, to the scope and purport of the sixteenth section of the act of 1836. The defendant had set up in his answer that both of the interfering patents were void for want of novelty. The court allowed the defence to the action, and said that the power conferred by the etatute to declare either of the patents invalid, in whele or in part, necessarily included full authority, where the evidence justified, on the issues made. ��� �