Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/452

 438 FEDERAL REPORTER. �United States re-issued patent, Whether such inventions are fully shown and patented by the English provisional :Bpecification, or by the French original patent alone, or by the latter in connection with the first certificats of addition, we do not now consider or decide, for any purpose. �We determine on inspection, and in the absence of any affidavit to the contrary on the part of the plaintiffs, that the inventions patented by the French patent, and the two certifieates of addition to it, all three taken together, are the same as those patented by the United States re-issued patent, to an extent sufficient to warrant the grant- ing of the motion to amend the decree, and to amend the answer, and to open the decree and the proofs, and to discharge the injunc- tion. The French patent and certifieates of addition are not now admitted as a patent to a third party, to defeat the plaintiffs' patent on the question of novelty, but only on the question of the extent of duration of the patent. The patent can have no life beyond the time limited by statute. The question of such life, in view of the French patent and certifieates of addition, has not been before pre- aented and passed upon. It can now be presented and passed upon on a motion to vacate or limit the duration of the injunetion, or on a motion by the plaintiffs for an attaehment for violating the injune- tion. �The words "perpetuai injunetion," in the decree, mean only for the life of the patent. That must be determined by the statute and all the facts of the case, and not merely by the terma of the grant in the patent; and an interlocutory decree is always open to amendment and correction. In this view it seems proper that the answer should be amended to set up the French patent and certifieates of addition, )and that the decree shouLl be amended by fixing a date beyond which, for the purposes of the injunetion, the patent cannot have life, and by allowiiig the French patent and certifieates of addition to be put in evidence in the proofs, with such relevant proofs respecting the same and their contents as either party may wish to offer. We think that, in view of the subjact-matter of the application, the de- fendants have not been guilty of laches; that the application does not corne too late; and that th > reasons assignetl in excuse for not making an earlier application are sufficient. But this case is no prec- edent for the case of an appUcati )n to set up a defence to defeat a patent for want of novelty. �The plaintiffs' patent runs, on its face, for 17 years from June 28, ��� �