vice as against her husband. The time within which the acts that resulted in the invention occurred was so short that the court thought that she had acquiesced in her husband's claim to be the original inventor, and that therefore she, and those claiming under her, could not set up the patent of Mrs. Hibbard as against George W. Hibbard's patent. After this decision canceling the Susan M. Hibbard patent the present complainant filed the bill now in question, and asks the court for an injunction against these various defendants; and the only'question is, upon the state of facts as now disclosed, shall the court grant an injunction? It is a well-settled rule in the patent cases that the court will not grant an injunction where there is doubt as to the validity of the patent. I must say I have been impressed from the time the George W. Hibbard patent was brought before me with at least considerable doubt as to whether this patent could be sustained as a valid invention. There was testimony in the original feather-duster case against Susan M. Hibbard and those claiming under her of feathers having been made pliable prior to this application in manufacture of feather dusters. The device itself is of such a nature as will hardly justify its being characterized as an invention or to call in play inventive faculty. It is hardly neces sary to more than simply say that it strikes me that at least there is room for grave doubt whether simply splitting or shaving off the shaft or stem of the feather to make it more pliable is an inventive device. A feather has some pliability to start with. Its pliability is not the result wholly of the shaving of a portion of the shaft, but it is simply rendered more so. If it was so rigid as not to be pliable at all and was made pliable thereby, there might be a claim for some invention if some device for doing that was named; but where it simply makes it more pliable than it was there is room for grave doubt whether it comes within the scope of inventive faculty. Then, too, where there is doubt as to the title of the patent an injunction should not be granted. Now, it appears that the Patent Office has not fully determined whether George W. Hibbard or Gilbert M. Richmond was the original inventor of this device. There certainly is now pending before the Patent Office much pertinent testimony tending to show that Richmond was the suggestor of this device some months prior to the time Hibbard claims that he made feathers more pliable by shaving the shaft or stem. For these reasons I think the court should not interfere with the business of this defendant by granting an injunction. It appears, it is true, that these parties are insolvent, some of them not able to pay whatever damages may be recovered. It appears also that these parties (all of them) originated business or went in under Susan M. Hibbard's patent, which was apparently a valid patent, and the court having simply declared the George W. Hibbard patent superior in point of legality to the Susan M. Hibbard patent does not necessarily conclude any of the parties making feather dusters from contest ing the validity of the George W. Hibbard patent. That was expressly provided for in the decree canceling the Susan M. Hibbard patent. I think, therefore, that, in view of the manner in which these parties engaged in the business, and in view of the doubts that surround the title, that at present the court would do more injury to the defendants by granting the injunction than it would to the complainants by withholding the injunction. The motion for injunction is therefore overruled. [United States Circuit Court-Southern District of New York.] CORNLEY v. MARCKWALD. Decided June 26, 1883. 24 O. G., 498. 1. VALIDITY OF PATENTS-NOT AFFECTED BY VALIDITY OF FOREIGN Patents. The validity of a patent granted in this country does not at all depend upon the validity of the patent granted in a foreign country, although its duration may. 2. SAME-PUBLIC USE IN FOREIGN COUNTRY-EFFECT OF FOREIGN PATENT. Public use in a foreign country, which might defeat the patent there, would have no effect upon a patent granted here, and a foreign patent would have no effect but to limit the term. 3. STATUTES RELATING TO FOREIGN PATENTS. Statutes with regard to the effect of a foreign patent upon a United States patent recited. Mr. Benjamin F. Lee for the plaintiff. Mr. William A. Coursen for the defendant. WHEELER, J.: This cause has now, after a decree for the orator establishing the validity of Letters Patent No. 83,910, dated November 10, 1868, issued to Antoine Bonnaz, for an improvement in sewing-machines for embroidery, and, pending the accounting, been heard on a motion of the defendant to reopen the case for further proofs. The grounds of the motion are that the invention was previously patented in France; that in litigation there between the orator, who now owns this patent, and the inventor, the patent there was judged invalid on allegations and evidence of the orator, and that the defendant desires an opportunity to put that judg ment and the evidence of the orator there on which it was obtained in evidence here. This patent was granted under the acts of 1836 (5 Stats. at Large, 117), 1839 (Ibid, 353), and 1861 (12 Ibid, 246). The validity of the patent in this country does not at all depend upon the validity of the patent in France, although its duration may, which is not in question yet. Under section 8 of the act of 1836 the inventor was not entitled to a patent here if the invention had been patented in a foreign country more than six months next preceding the filing of the application. This restriction was removed by section 6 of the act of 1839, provided the invention should not have been introduced into public and common use in the United States prior to the application, and that the patent should be limited to fourteen years from the date or publication of the foreign patent; and by section 7 of that act the public use to defeat a patent was required to extend two years before the application. By section 16 of the act of 1861 the term fourteen years was extended to seventeen years, and extensions were prohibited. Under this provision patents for inventions patented abroad before were limited to seventeen years from the date or publication of the foreign patent. De Florez v. Reynolds, 17 Blatchf., C. C. R., 436. The public use in France which might defeat the patent there would have no effect upon the validity of the patent here. The law here did not make the invention patentable here because it had been patented there, nor in any way found the patent here upon the patent there. The inventor could obtain a patent here by proving that he was the original and first inventor in this country and complying with the laws of this country in making his application for it, and foreign use would have no effect upon it at all, and a prior foreign patent would have no effect but to limit the term from its date. The evidence sought would be irrelevant to any issue in the case and wholly unavailing. Motion denied. [United States Circuit Court-District of Rhode Island.] HAYDEN v. THE ORIENTAL MILLS. Decided March 12, 1883. 24 O. G., 601. LIMITATION OF ACTIONS-PROVISIONS OF SECTION 721 REVISED STATUTES APPLY TO PATENT CASES. State statutes of limitations are applicable to actions at law for the infringement of a patent. Mr. J. L. 8. Roberts for the plaintiff. Mr. Benj. F. Thurston for the defendant. LOWELL, J.: BEFORE LOWELL AND COLT, JUDGES. The plaintiff brings this action on the case for infringement of his rights under a patent. The defendant pleads that the infringement, if any, occurred more than six years before action brought, which is a bar by the statute of Rhode Island. (Pub. St., chap. 205, sec. 3.) The plaintiff demurs. Several judges of great ability and experience have held that the statutes of limitations of the States do not affect actions upon patent rights, upon the theory that section 34 of the judiciary act (now Revised Statutes, section 721), making the laws of the States the rules of decision in the courts of the United States, in actions at the common law, does not apply to actions which are within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the United States. There are several able decisions on the other side, but perhaps the weight of authority is with the plaintiff on this point. We give the citations in a note at the end of this opin ion. This is an action at law, and if the statutes in question do not apply, there is no limitation, unless it be that of Rhode Island in 1789, for a court of common law has no discretion to refuse to entertain stale claims. This result appears to us to be inadmissible. No reason is given in any decision for excepting one class of cases out of section 721. Some arguments upon the general question have been made which we shall advert to. There is no such exception in the statute itself, and none in its intent and purpose. Exclusive jurisdiction is given for reasons which are apart from this question. For instance, in patent cases the Federal courts have this control in order that the construction of the law and of the patents granted under it may be as nearly uniform as possible, not that the remedies of a patentee shall be of uniform duration. Equity is a uniform system in the Federal courts throughout the United States; but the remedies in equity are barred in those courts by the State statutes of limitations in certain cases. Suppose Congress chooses to give assignees in bankruptcy or national banks an exclusive right to sue in the courts of the United States, can any one maintain that their debtors have no protection by the lapse of time, unless a special statute of limitations is passed by the national authority! This theory of the dependence of section 721 upon concurrent jurisdiction seems to be an echo of the rule that courts of equity, and perhaps even courts of admiralty, are bound by the State statutes of limitations in cases of concurrent jurisdiction; but it is not concurrent jurisdiction of the State courts, but that of courts of common law, State or national, which decides the point. Besides, what is this concurrent jurisdiction? There are very few cases in which the jurisdiction is really concurrent. In nearly all the defendant has an absolute and conclusive right to make the jurisdiction of the Federal courts exclusive by a removal of the cause. The truth is that section 721 is a declaratory act, announcing a general doctrine of international law, and the Supreme Court have so construed it. They apply it only to local matters, such as land laws, statutes of limitations, and the like, and in those cases they apply the same rule in equity, though equitable suits are not mentioned in the act; and, on the other hand, they refuse to apply it to general questions, such as those of commercial law, though when arising at common law they are within the words of the act. The United States, when they are plaintiffs, are not bound by such statutes of limitations; but this is because they are not bound by similar acts of Congress, unless specially mentioned, and they are not mentioned in section 721. It is said that the States cannot declare when actions on patent rights shall be barred. Very true; but neither can they bar any actions in the Federal courts. The bar arises from the constitution and situation of those courts, the general international law, and section 721. If not, it would seem to follow that there is no limitation, or thas it depends upon the law of Rhode Island in 1789, as in United States v. Read (12 How., 361), in which the court, finding that section 721 did not apply to criminal cases, were obliged to find some law, and went back to the origin of the Government. To us it seems as inadmissible to say that section 721 does not apply to patent cases as that the law adopting the general practice of the States does not apply to them. In one particular it perhaps does not, because the statute says that an action on the case shall be the remedy. This is a reproduction of the old law which was passed when all the States had that form of action, and it may or may not now be an exclusive remedy; but no one can deny that in other respects the process and procedure acts apply to actions at law for the infringement of patent rights. A dozen questions may arise in any patent case which can only be decided by the law of the State. There is no doubt, of course, of the right of Congress to make a statute of limitations for patent causes. The power is specially reserved in section 721, and by the act of 1870, section 55 (16 St., 206), they made such a law, which provides that all actions shall be brought within the term for which letters patent shall be granted or extended, or within six years thereafter. Congress, when they passed this act, may have supposed that there was no limitation; but, if so, they found out their mistake, for they repealed this part of the patent law, when they passed the Revised Statutes, by omitting it from the chapter on patents. Styles v. Oregon Central Ry. Co., 6 Sawy., 31; Vaughn v. East Tenn., &c., R. Co., 11 O. G., 789. When they thus repealed the act of Congress, the State law became again applicable to future infringements; but one of the repealing sections (section 5599) reserves all existing causes of action, so far as limitations are concerned, precisely as though no repeal had been made. Sayles v. Oregon Central Ry. Co., supra; Vaughn v. East Tenn., &c., R. Co., supra. The plaintiff declares upon a patent granted in 1857, and extended in 1861, expiring in 1878, and alleges damage for the whole period of twenty-one years. The plea, which merely sets up the bar of six years before action brought, does not fully answer this declaration in the view we have taken of the law, because, granting that when the act of 1870 was passed, an action for a part of the damages was barred, and granting that all causes of action which have accrued since the act was repealed, and more than six years before the service of the writ, are barred, there may remain, for anything that appears by the declaration, certain rights which arose between these times which are saved by the |