PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS, (continued.) Patents for inventions cannot be withheld on moral grounds, where the allegation and oath, and a suitable specification have been filed, and a model (if required) deposited.. There is no reason for refusing applicants a copy of the specifications, drawings, or model of any patented invention... Page. 106 106 No patent for an invention can properly issue, unless the applicant makes oath that such invention hath not, to the best of his knowledge, been known or used in this or any foreign country; and if it turn out that any patent shall have been issued for an invention theretofore known and used, the same shall be utterly void...... 215 A defendant, when sued by a patentee for an alleged violation of his patent right, has a right to a copy of the specifications for use on the trial, in order to enable him to show, if he can, that the specification does not contain the whole truth relative to the discovery, or that it contains more than is necessary to the effect desired; and, as the law gives this privilege, it by implication gives the right of using the specification openly and publicly in court..... The established forms of jury trials, in other cases, cannot be departed from in patent cases, even though patentees may desire secrecy.. The 11th section of the patent law does not open to all the citizens of the United States indiscriminately, at pleasure, and for any purpose that may suit them, the right to demand copies of papers respecting patents for inventions granted to others 470 Patentees, and persons holding under patentees, and persons sued for violations of patent rights, should, upon demand, and upon payment of twenty cents per folio for the copy, be furnished with copies of specifications.. .... It may be questionable whether the substitution of one material for another be an invention within the sense of the patent law...... 213 243 470 515 In cases of doubt it will be congenial with the policy of the law to issue a patent to the petitioner, thereby giving him an opportunity of trying the validity of his right 515 It is not advisable to issue patents for newly-invented medicines to bear the name of other popular medicines existing. In this case there can be no fair purpose for assuming a name so well known as "Anderson's Cough Drops.". 552 An appeal under the act of 26th May, 1824, must be taken within twelve months, but as an attempt for redress is to be made before the Supreme Court of the United States, patents are to be suspended... The department acts ministerially rather than judicially in granting patents for useful inventions...... Copies of papers belonging to the Patent Office may not be made by individuals, but should be made by the proper officer, and fees received therefor and paid into the treasury.. 603 779 779 Where patents for inventions have been issued and afterwards cancelled by petition of the patentees, and others bearing the same date, comprising additional improvements, issued in their favor, others may afterwards issue for the additional improvements alone, taking date from the time when the second patents were issued. 779 The rights secured by letters of patent are the subjects of judicial, not of executive decision. When all the laws and forms have been complied with, patents issue without inquiry as to the precise rights they confer. Patents may be surrendered by parties to whom they are granted, and new ones tąken, including additional improvements... The party applying for a patent must prove to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State that he is a citizen of the United States; or, if an alien, that he has resided in the United States for two years.. 779 779 It is not proper to grant a patent on a joint invention to one of the inventors upon the assignment of the other; but all who are concerned in the invention should join in the petition.... 817 857 As to what evidence will be deemed sufficient to authorize one man to act as the attorney of another, is the subject of a rule that must be fixed by the department... 857 An assignee of a patent for an invention cannot surrender it and take to himself a new one on new and additional specifications, except upon proof that the new specifications were invented by the patentee, and were intended originally to have been patented by him; and that the omission was a mistake... The oath of the inventor is requisite, for the act of Congress requires it; the mere statement of what are called corrected specifications by the patentee or his assignee, is not sufficient... Unless there be some error in the specifications arising from inadvertency, accident, or mistake, and without any fraudulent or deceptive intention, the patentee cannot surrender a patent which includes several distinct improvements and take out several new ones... 858 858 1075 Extension of patents for useful inventions may be granted to the legal representatives of original patentees, where such patentees, if living, would be entitled thereto.... 1264 PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS, (continued.) Verifications and depositions in foreign countries to be made under the provisions of the sixth section of the act of July 4, 1836, before patents can issue, should not be made before consuls, but before competent magistrates of the country where they shall be taken, and authenticated by the consul.. Any abrogation of oaths in the patent laws of England will not affect the question here; all conditions requisite to a patent in this country must be complied with according to the laws of Congress.... Applications for extensions of patenis for inventions must be made to the Commissioner a sufficient time before the expiration of the term for which they were issued, to enable him to give the notice contemplated by the act of 4th of July, 1836, to the public in that section of the country most interested adversely to them.. Patentees who neglect to make seasonable applications for extensions must forego the advantages which such extensions confer..... ... Patents for inventions cannot issue to inventors and assignees of a partial interest It was the obvious purpose of the proviso to the 15th section of the act of 4th of Ju- ... The date of a patent issued for an invention may be corrected to correspond with a patent granted by the king of Bavaria when the mistake in that already issued arose from no fraudulent or deceptive intention..... The authority vested in the Commissioner of Patents to issue patents for inventions exists in full force in each case, for examination and final decision, until the patent shall have been actually issued... And whatever intervening or interlocutory opinions he may give in the proceedings to determine questions of interference prior to the final determination and issuance of the patent, the subject remains under his control until the issuance, as that is the act which finally decides the question.... The Commissioner has authority, therefore, to permit one of two competing applicants for a patent for a similar invention to withdraw and refile his application after he has expressed an opinion favorable to the priority of the other; and such intervening opinion or decision is no bar to the issuance of a patent on the new application, if, upon a full examination of the whole subject, he considers the applicant entitled to it..... PATENTS FOR LANDS. (See Lands.). Page. 1321 1321 1363 1363 1735 1735 1962 1962 1692 2084 2084 2094 64 PATENT OFFICE, clerks in. No more clerks in the Patent Office can be employed and paid by the Secretary than are particularly authorized by the acts of Congress; nor can any higher allowance be made to them than is authorized by the act of 20th April, 1818. PATENT OFFICE, architect of...... 779 PAYMENT. The trustees of Messrs. Myers & Sons, who, having been unfortunate in the busi- 1999 620 1383 1127, 1531 690 Officers, musicians, and privates, composing the peace-establishment, who, although not "wounded," have lost their health whilst in the line of their duty to such an extent as to be disabled from performing duty any more, are within the meaning of the term "or otherwise," and are prima facie entitled to the charitable relief of the legislature.. Every officer, &c., in full commission, and not on furlough, must be considered in The cadets at West Point who have been or may be wounded whilst in the line of neers..... Being consolidated with the original corps, they could not, therefore, be properly distinguished from them afterwards, but were subject to be called into actual service whensoever and wheresoever it might please the President, and made amenable to the rules and articles of war..... 67, 71 So that it follows, as a legal consequence, that the cadets attached to the Military Academy at West Point are entitled to the benefits of the provision made for wounds and disabilities received in the line of their duty by the 14th section of the act of 1802... The act of 11th January, 1812, does not provide for aides-de-camp, as such, regulated by their pay as such; and therefore, until further legislation, they can receive only the pension to which their commission entitles them... 1629 113 113 224 224 224 224 268 It is irregular for the War Department to accept certificates of navy surgeons instead of their "affidavits," as required by the act of 3d March, 1819, regulating payments to invalid pensioners... ......... 347 603 683 The act of the 2d March, 1821, to reduce and fix the military peace establishment of the United States has not repealed or changed in any manner the claims for pensions given by the analogous act of 1815 and the acts to which it refers.... Whether or not a former Secretary of War committed an error in allowing a pension for partial instead of a total disability, the decision cannot now be reviewed..... An invalid pensioner, who has proved his title to a pension, and has been placed on the pension list, but who has omitted for more than two years to produce the proof of two surgeons as required by the act of March 3, 1819, may receive his pension whenever he does offer such proof without making another original application... 795, In order, however, to entitle him to the pension for the whole of the time past, the proof must apply to his condition as an invalid at the expiration of every two years, and show that at those periods his disability continued... 795 It rests with the President to prescribe the regulations under which a person shall be admitted as a pensioner, and the rate of pay which he shall receive, as well under the act of 1812 as that of 1802.. 822 He may apply it to civil officers receiving a certain amount of income from their offices, whilst he exempts others from its operation... 822 Hence the applicant has no absolute legal right to be placed on the pension list. If the regulations of the President applicable to those who hold civil offices exclude him, he cannot be placed there... 822 In order to entitle the widows and orphans of the officers who are wounded and die 856 PENSIONS-ARMY, (continued.) tion, and he had a permit to pass, and was passing the guard for some purpose growing out of, or connected with, the public service. The act of 20th May, 1836, placed pensioners on precisely the same footing as if the act to prevent defalcations, &c., had never been passed; consequently, all moneys which have been withheld from pensioners under the construction theretofore given to the act to prevent defalcations, ought to be refunded.. The act of 23d April, 1800, does not authorize pensions for wounds received in the line of duty prior to the passage of the act; nor can the act of 3d March, 1837, be construed to embrace such cases... Widows and children of paymasters of the army who shall have died while in service, by reason of wounds received in actual service, are entitled to the benefit of the fifteenth section of the act of the 16th of March, 1802, fixing the military peace establishment.. Page. 871 1055 1216 1256 If a person entitled to a pension from the government be overpaid by mistake, or by the application of some wrong principle of computation, and yet have a further claim against the government, the claim may set off against the said overpayment. 1514 Mr. Butler's opinion reviewed and commented on.. 1514 An officer who, having lost a limb in the war of 1812, was mustered out of the service upon a captain's pension, and afterwards appointed battalion paymaster, may be regarded as having been appointed to the civil branch of the service within the meaning of the act of 30th April, 1844, and entitled to receive both his pension and his pay... The phrase "civil branch of the service," employed in the act of 1844, commented 1983 1983 Navy pensioners are included in the act of March 3, 1819, regulating payments to invalids entitled to pensions under the several laws of Congress granting them..... 297 A seaman disabled by punishment inflicted by an enemy for endeavoring to escape from him after having been taken prisoner, is within the spirit of the act of 23d April, 1800, granting pensions to seamen disabled whilst in the line of their duty.. 300 When a public or private armed vessel has foundered, or been lost at sea, since the 18th day of June, 1812, and previous to the 22d January, 1825, the widows and children of those who perished on board are entitled to pensions.. In the case of a prize vessel having foundered or been lost at sea during the above The widow of a person who has died by reason of a wound received while acting in the line of his duty, serving on board a private armed vessel, is entitled to half the monthly pay to which the rank of the deceased would have entitled him for the term of five years; but in the case of her death or intermarriage during the said term of five years, the half pay for the remainder of the term goes to the child or children of the deceased... It is a vested right for so much money per annum for five years, subject to be discontinued and defeated by her death or marriage at any time within that term, but only from that time; and if the widow has neglected to receive all her dues from the government up to the time of her marriage, before marriage, she may claim it afterwards.... 464 464 464 481 481 543 543 All the laws giving pensions to widows and children on the navy pension fund take the half-pay of the deceased officer, seaman, or marine, as the measure of the pension; so that twenty years' pension can only equal twenty years' half-pay... The husband of a woman, after her marriage, in her right might receive that portion. of the pension which accrued to her during her widowhood; but all the laws discontinue the pension on her marriage, so that nothing can accrue after that event.. It is the manifest policy of the law, and it has been the uniform practice of the department, to discontinue pensions to children after they have attained the age of 16 years. 543 The first section of the act of 1828 does not extend all provisions given by the law of 1814, but such part of them only as, under the operation of that act, has been assigned or belonged to the widow and children of those officers, seamen and marines who had been killed in battle, or who had died of wounds received in battle, during the late war.... So far, and so far only, as the act of 1817 operated to give pensions to the widows and children of officers, seamen and marines, who died in the naval service during 543 PENSIONS, NAVY, (continued.) the late war, in consequence of disease contracted and casualties and injuries received in the line of their duty, those provisions have been continued by the acts of 1819, 1824, and 1828, and are so far embraced by the first section of the last mentioned law.... A pension can be allowed to a widow who was or had been within one year before, in the receipt of a pension under the acts of 1814, 1818, or 1824, but not to the children, the second section of the act of 1828 making no provision for children, but for widows only.... Page. 543 543 725 Widows and children of officers, seamen, and marines, who have died since the late Widows are not debtors to the public for what they may have erroneously received The act of July 10, 1832, devolved upon the Secretary of the Navy the duty of de- 831 831 838 838 The disability mentioned in the act of Congress of 23d April, 1800, in order to war- 840 Whether justice to Captain Jones requires a correction of the time fixed for the commencement of his pension, or not, rests altogether in the discretion of the Secretary of the Navy...... The applicant, Mrs. McCormick, is entitled to her pension during the time she remained the widow of Lieutenant Leary. (See opinion of Attorney General of June 9, 1825; to which reference is made for a settlement of the practice of the government in this respect.).. The widow of a sailing master who died in 1813, but not in consequence of disease contracted, or of injury received, while in the service, is not entitled to be placed on the pension list-the laws respecting the navy fund not making any provision for such a case... Where the pay of the officer was regulated, at the time of his decease, by the act of 3d March, 1835, fixing it at four thousand dollars per year, and died, leaving him surviving a widow, who demands a pension under the act of 3d March, 1817, giving half-pay, &c., to widows-HELD, that the amount of the widow's pension must be regulated by the act of 1835; deducting all allowances usually made for all rations except one from the said four thousand dollars, and paying her one-half of the residue... 840 840 842 919 958 The foregoing opinion advises the deduction of only fifteen of the sixteen rations al- 960 990 If the husband is to be regarded only as a seaman, and the widow not within the act of 1813, she is referred to the act of 3d March, 1817, as all rights under that law are saved, although the act has been since repealed.. .... 1013 1013 |