Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/456

 44a FEDERAL REJPORTBR. �circumstances, the United States patent is to take its departure. And that, as be^ore in practice, United States patents were granted for 14 years, and patents for inventions previously patented abroad to the same inventer were before limited to 14 years from the .date or publication "of the foreign patent," so now, under the new Sys- tem introduced by the act of 1861, such a patent (still to be granted, otherwise, in accordanee with the provisions of the act of 1836 and 1839) was to remain in force 'for 17 years from "the date or publi- cation" of the foreign patent, while the United States patents were to remain in force for 17 years, instead of 14 years, froru their "date of issue;" the privilege of having them "take date" from a date not exceeding six months prior to the actual issue, as the "date of issue," under section 8 of the act of 1836, being still preserved, and sufth patents expiringl7 years from such "date of issue," and not 17 years from the actual issuihg. There is nothing in these views that is inconsistent with or does violence to the language of section 16 of the act of. 1861, and they are in harmony with the course of. legislation. Contrary views would determine that there ' Was, by section 16 of the act of 1861, a sudden, unexpressed, and only implied change of the poliey of section 6 of the act of 1839, then in force for 22 years; such policy making the terms of patents, like those in the present case, take date from the date or publication of the foreign patent, and rtm from that time for the same time other United States patents ran, from their time of beginning to run. And such contrary views would establish an enlargement of term, by the act of 1861, in favor of an invention previously patented abroad; such enlargement remaining in force till 1870, and then curtailed in 1870 so as to be more narrow than under the act of 1839, and to make the United States patent expire at the same time with the foreign patent having the shortest term. �No argument can be drawn in favor of the plaintiffs' view, from the fact that, in section 16 of the act of 1861, the expression is, "all patents hereaf ter granted." Literally, such expression eovers future patents granted as re-issues. By section 13 of the act of 1836, (5 St. at Large, 122,) which continued in force after the act of 1861 went into force, a re-isaue is authorized, and the re-issued patent is therfe called "a new patent," and is authorized to be issued only for the residue of the period then unexpired, for which the original patent was granted. Yet it never was or could be supposed that under sec- tion 16 of the act of 1861 a re-issued patent was to be granted for 1 1 ��� �