Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/459

 DE FliOBBZ V. BAYNOLDS. 445 �before, or fully considered by, the court in Ehode Island, because not directly involved in the case. �The views announced in this decision, which are eoncurred in by both of the judges, lead to the conclusion that the motion of the de- fendants must be granted, so far as to direct that the decree be amended by inserting a finding that the plaintififs' re-issued patent is valid, for the purposes of the injunction granted, only for the term of 17 years from November 27, 1862, without holding whether, for the purposes of the aceounting ordered, it is valid for as long a term as that, ,and that the defendants be permitted to amend their answer by setting up said French patent and the two certiucates of addition, and that said decree and the proofs be opened, in order to allow them to introduce the same in evidence, and to allow either party to intro- duce any relevant testimony in respect to the same and their contents, and that the provision for the injunction and the injunction be no-w vacated and discharged. �We fix the date of November 27, 1862, and not the date of Febru- ary 20, 1863, because we regard it as the clear intention of the pro- visions of iaw limiting the dura<tion of a United States patent, patenting an invention previously patented abrbad to the same in- yentor, to give to the patentee a specifled term frorh the date at which his foreign patent had effect as a foreign patent in his favor. In this case sucb date was November 27, 1862, and not February 20, 1863. This view is not neeessarily applicable to a case where a foreign pat- ent to one inventor is set up to def eat a United States patent to a different inventor. In such case the manifest intention of the Iaw is that the foreign patent shall apply only as of a date when the inven- tion was published or was accessible to the public, and not as of an earlier date, from which the inventor may have enjoyed the benefit of the foreign patent as a patent. The language of section 16 of the act of 1861, in saying that the 17 years is to run from "the date of issue," is a marked departure from the expression, "date or publica- tion" of the foreign patent, in section 6 of the act of 1839; and in reading the two sections together, full effect must be giyen to the new expression. ��� �