Entered, according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1891,

By THE BRODIX PUBLISHING COMPANY,

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.

Press of GEO. F. LASHER, 1212-15 Filbert Street, Philadelphia, Pa

EXPLANATION OF NOTES.

The Text of the Opinion.

The text of the opinion of the Court is taken wholly from the record, and not from the official reporter. The reason for this is that the record is the original source from which the reporter himself obtains his matter; that it is complete, no cases decided by the Court being omitted therefrom; that on application to the Clerk of the Court for a certified copy of an opinion, it is the copy of the opinion as it appears in the record, and not as printed in the official report that he furnishes.

Prominent among the advantages secured by printing the record, is the fact that the statement of the case, involving all those facts which the Court considers material to the understanding of its opinion is made by the Court itself, strictly in view of its decision, concisely and judicially, whereas the official reporters, Wallace and Otto, have omitted whole pages of the statement as made by the Court, substituting their own, or have so amended and varied the Court's statement as to make it practically a new one. The case of Packing Company Cases, reported in volume 14, p. 49, is a notable example, on consulting which the footnotes appended will be found to point out the variation of the official reporter from the original record.

It will also be observed that this practice of these reporters has often been the cause of omitting in their reports the introductory part of the opinion as given in the record, supplying it from their own point of view and actually beginning the report of the opinion at an intermediate point of the record.

The text in this work has been prepared from printed certified copies of the record, and has undergone a second comparison while in type before printing, made directly with the original record in the Supreme Court, giving an assurance that no effort has been spared to secure

accuracy.

It has further been compared with the officially published reports and the divergences of the latter from the record, pointed out in foot-notes to each case where they occur, in justification of the course pursued by the editor, and for the convenience of the profession.

The Syllabi, or The Head-Notes.

The head-notes have been prepared with care and considerable elaboration, the editor deeming it more convenient to the profession that he should err on the side of too great minutia in calling their attention even to what may be regarded as dicta of the Court. At the end of each headnote will be found, between brackets, the page of the opinion of which it is a digest. The head-notes are numbered consecutively, and at the end of each case there will be found under the corresponding number of the head-note a note of Supreme Court Patent Cases, in chronological order, relative to the subject-matter of the head-note.

The Annotations, or Notes at Ending of Case.

Notes at ending of case are of three kinds: Those in the form of notes to the head-notes; those relating to the patent in suit; and those relating to cases in which the particular case reported has been cited.

Notes to the head-notes. These consist of Supreme Court Patent Cases, arranged in chronological order, in which the substance of the head-note has been restated, affirmed, or applied, as the case may be; these have been brought down to the latest decisions of the Court, accessible at the date of printing the volume.

The patent in suit is next given with its reissues, if any, followed by a chronological list of all reported Federal suits in which the patent has been involved.

Citations of the particular opinion. Then follows a list of those cases in which the opinion reported has been cited. This list includes Federal, State, and Canadian Cases, opinions of the Attorney-General, and of the Commissioner of Patents, and the latest text-books, Curtis, 4th Edit., Walker, Merwin, Abbott and Robinson.

All the lists are chronological in arrangement, and in the list of citations the dates are appended.

Additional References, etc.

To facilitate the finding of any case appearing in the notes, not only is the original report given, but also volume and page of Robb, Fisher, Banning and Arden, and others in which it is reprinted.

Both in the opinion and arguments the rule has been followed of adding the names to cases cited by page and volume only, these additions to the text being included in brackets.

Blank-lined spaces after each note and a blank page at the end of each case are left for the insertion of additional citations and of general notes.

Tables.

There are added a number of tables and two indexes for ready reference. These are Tables of Cases, Reference Table of Cases, Table of Patents in Suit, of Cases Cited, of Abbreviations, of Names of Justices, of Names of Counsel, an Index Digest, and a Digest of Notes.

Reference is made throughout the work to the volume and page of the English cases already published as part of this series, wherever they WOODBURY LOWERY.

occur.

WASHINGTON, D. C.,

April 1, 1890.