Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/832

 818 FEDESAIi BEPORITEB. �of certain facts touching his remuneration, etc., provided that no extension of a patent should be granted after the expiration of the term for wbieh it was originally limited. This -was the law until the act of March 2, 1861, by whichthe policy was adopted of granting pat- ents for 17 years, and not extending them under any circumstances ; but this applied only to grants after March 2, 1861, (12 St; 249.) When the statutes ooncerning patents were revised and consolidated in 1870, section 63 of the statute reserved the right to apply for an extension to all invehtors whose patents were granted before March 2,1861, (16 St. 208;) and. this is repeated in Eev. St.§§ 4924-4928. The language of all these statutes is broad, and makes no exception of persons who have taken out patents in foreign countries, and it is admitted by the defendants that no discrimination was made at the patent-office down to 1870, but that any inventer might have an extension who could prove the necessary facts, without regard to the question whether he held a foreign patent. Many such extended patents have been litiga,ted, and no objection appears to have been taken to the power of the office to extend them. �By the law in 1836, and before and since, a patent can be granted, generally speaking, only to th^ brigina,! aiid first inventer, and the invention must not have been patented elsewhere, or described in a printed publication, The statute of 1886, § 8, (5 St. 121,) provided that nothing therein eontained should deprive an original and true inventer of a right to a patent by reason of his having taken out letters patent theref or in a foreign country, and the same having been published at any time within six months next preceding the iiling of his specification and drawingg in this countfy. By the act of 1839, § 6, (5 St. 354,) the lapse of six months after the inven- tion had been patented abroad was declared not to be fatal, provided the invention had not been introduued'into public and common use in the United States, and provided that all such patents should be limited to the term.of 14 years from the date or publication of the foreign letters patent. ... �We have no moredoubt than counsel have that the general and broad provision for extending patents made no discrimination against those which were limited to 14 years from the date of a foreign patent. Congress probably took for granted that all foreign patents were limited to 14 yearS",' tind^ they intended that the American patent should expire with th^l^reign patent; but in respect to exten- sions they failed to legislate. -Oertaihly there would be no justice in providing that an inventer, who had been diligent enotigh' to obtain a ��� �