Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/627

 S12 FEDERAL REPORTER. �4886 of the Eeviaed Statutes. The words "known or used" have been employed in allthe patent laws from the first act, passed April 10, 1790, down to their latest general revision, July 8, 1870 ; but the other words of the phrase, "in this country," were not added until the last-named act was passed. Why were they inserted, and what restrictions were they intended to impose ? �The aim of the section is to de&ne what inventions or discoveriea are patentable, and congress has used therein the following language : �"Any person who has invented or discovered any new and useful art, ma- chine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new or useful improve- ment thereof, not knoijon or used by others in this country, and not patented or described in any printed publication na this or any foreign country, before his invention or discovery thereof, and not in public use or on public sale for more than two years prior to his application, uhless the same is proved to have been abandoned, may, upon the payment of the fees required by law, and other due proceedings had, obtain a patent therefor." �It is an elementary principle in the construction of a statute that the meaning of one part is to be discovered or deduced from a view of the whole. Henee, if one part be doubtful or obscure, the proper way to ascertain the intent is to consider the other parts of the act, — the words and meaning of one frequently leading to the sense of another. Dwarris, St. 188. �Are there any other provisions in the law which throw any light upon the meaning of the above-quoted section? Under the fourth subdivision of section 4920 the defendant, in an action for infringe- ment, is authorized to prove on the trial that the complainant wais not the original and first inventor of discoverer of any material or substantial part of the thing patented; but this must be done, sub- ject to the limitations imposed by section 4923, which provides that whenever it appears that a patentee, at the time of making his appli- cation for the patent, believed himself to be the original and first inventor or discoverer of the thing patented, the same shall not be held to be void on account of the invention or discovery, or any part thereof, having been known or used in a foreign country before his invention or discovery thereof, if it had not been patented, or described in a printed publication. �This provision also appeared in the fifteenth section of the act of July 4, 1836, and since that date the courts have uniformly held that no prior use in a foreign country of an invention invalidated a pat- ent granted here, unless the invention had been patented, or described in some printed publication. O'Reilly v. Morse, 1.5 How. 62; Hays V. Sulsor, 1 Fish. 532; Judson v. Cope, Id. 623; Curt. Pat. § 99. ��� �