final, as it is in that of the rejection of a claim where there are not opposing parties. By the sixteenth section of the same act of 1836, "Whenever there shall be two interfering patents, or when a patent, on application, shall have been refused on an adverse decision of a board of examiners, on the ground that the patent applied for would interfere with an unexpired patent previously granted, any person interested in such patent, either by assignment or otherwise, in the one case, and any such applicant in the other case, may have remedy by bill in equity; and the court having cognizance thereof, on notice to adverse parties and other due proceedings had, may adjudge and declare either the patents void in whole or in part, or inoperative and invalid in any particular part or portion of the United States, according to the interest which the parties to such suit may possess in the patent, or the inventions patented, and may also adjudge that such applicant is entitled, according to the provisions and principles of this act, to have and receive a patent for his invention, as specified in his claim, or for any part thereof, as the fact of priority of right or invention shall in any case be made to appear. And such adjudication, if it be in favor of the right of such applicant, shall authorize the commissioner to issue such patent, on his filing a copy of the adjudication, and otherwise complying with

the requisitions of this act. Provided, however, that no such judgment or adjudication shall affect the rights of any person except the parties to the action and those deriving title from or under them subsequent to the rendition of such judgment."

Sec. IV.-SIGNATURE.

Under the law of 1793, s. 1, patents were signed by the president. As the signing is a mere ministerial act, the responsibility as to granting the patent having been formerly with the secretary of state and attorney general, and being, under the act of 1836, with the commissioner of patents, there seems to be no particular propriety in assigning the duty of signing patents to the president; for considering it to be a grant, Congress may authorize any officer or person to execute the document by which it is made. The English patents are signed by the king, which was probably the precedent followed in the act of 1793 in assigning the same duty to the president. But as the president has many important duties, it seems to be expedient that the duty of subscribing patents should be assigned to some other officer, for the more convenient official despatch of this branch of the administration of the laws. The act of 1836, s. 5, accordingly provides

that patents issued from the patent office "shall be issued in the name of the United States, and under the seal of said office, and be signed by the secretary of state, and countersigned by the commissioner of said office."

By the act of Feb. 21, 1793, s. 1, letters patent before they were signed by the president, were required to be delivered to the attorney general to be examined; who, within fifteen days after such delivery, if he found them conformable to that act was to certify accordingly. The act of July 4th, 1836, omits this provision, and under that act, the letters patent are not required to be examined by the attorney general.

Sec. V.-RECORDING.

It is provided by the act of 1836, s. 5, that "patents shall be recorded together with the descriptions, specifications and drawings, in said [patent] office, in books to be kept for that purpose." The recording

2 It has been suggested that under the law 1793 it was contrary to law to issue the patent before it was recorded, though it was said to be a frequent practice so to issue patents. North Am. Rev. v. 23, p. 302. The act of 1836, by a change of phraseology, seems to avoid any objection to the validity of the patent on this

score.

is in effect the publication of the patent, including the

specification.

CHAPTER XIV.

Duration, Surrender, Renewal and Prolongation of Patents.

THE act of Congress of 1836, s. 5, following that of 1793, s. 1, provides that the commissioner of patents may make out letters-patent granting to the petitioner or petitioners therefor, his, her, or their administrators, executors or assigns, "for a term not exceeding fourteen years, the full and exclusive right and liberty of making, using, and vending to others to be used, the said invention or discovery."

Though the phraseology of the act of Congress is not literally inconsistent with the construction that the commissioner may exercise a discretion as to the period for which the patent is granted, yet in practice, under the similar provision of the statute of 1793, authorizing the secretary of state to cause patents to be issued, the

inventor, if he brought himself within the terms of the law as to the character of his invention, and the steps taken to obtain a patent, has been considered to be entitled to it, for the full term of fourteen years. Where the first patent is void through mistake or inadvertence in drawing up the specification, a new one may be taken out for the unexpired part of the period of fourteen years.'

It has heretofore been a frequent practice in England and the United States, to apply to the legislature for the prolongation of the term of the patent. But the law of 1836, sect. 18, makes a new provision on this subject, that a patentee may make application to the commissioner in writing for the extension of his patent, setting forth the grounds of his application, and on payment of forty dollars into the treasury by the patentee, the commissioner shall cause the application to be published in one or more of the principal papers in Washington, and such other papers as he may deem proper, published in the section of the country most interested against the extension of the patent, with notice of the time and place of considering the application, that any person may appear and show cause why

1 Supra, ch. XI. s. 10, act of 1836. Grant v. Raymond, 6 Pet. S. C. R. 218. Ames v. Howard, 1 Sumner's Rep. 482.