Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Masse chusetts.

TO THE

HON. PELEG SPRAGUE,

JUDGE OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS,

THESE VOLUMES

ARE, WITH SENTIMENTS OF SINCERE RESPECT AND AFFECTION,

INSCRIBED,

BY THE EDITOR.

PREFACE.

THE collection of cases embraced in these two volumes, contain all of the Patent Cases decided in the Circuit Courts of the United States and reported prior to the first of January, 1850; and all of the cases decided in the Supreme Court of the United States to the same period. They are arranged as nearly as may be in chronological order; numbering one hundred and twenty-four cases, selected from sixty volumes of Reports, namely: Washington, Brockenboro', Peters, McLean, Paine, Gilpin, Gallison, Mason, Wallace, Sumner, Baldwin, Story, and Woodbury and Minot, of the Circuit Court Reports;-and Cranch, Wheaton, Peters, and Howard, of the Supreme Court Reports, thus embracing all of the decisions illustrating the principles of the Patent Laws of the United States. A few cases have been decided by the State Courts, involving, incidentally, questions arising under the Patent Laws, which have been omitted, as not affecting the principles or doctrines settled by the United States Courts. Exclusive jurisdiction of these subjects, in the administration of the Patent Laws, being vested in the United States Circuit and Supreme Courts.

The decisions upon the earlier statutes, in all cases
which have been modified by subsequent legislation,
have been appropriately noted, with reference to the
statutes, a collection of which will be found in the
Appendix, with marginal notes indicating the altera-
tions and additional provisions.

The Index embraces, all of the topics discussed and
decided by these courts, and is so full as to greatly
abridge the labor of search for the requisite authority.

It is proposed to continue this collection by the
addition, from time to time, of volumes embracing the
cases decided subsequent to the first of January, 1850,
if the facilities afforded hereby shall be deemed suffi-
cient to warrant it.

It is much to be regretted that the numerous deci-
sions of his Honor Judge Sprague, in the Circuit Court
for the District of Massachusetts, have not been re-
ported. Their luminous exposition of the principles
of the Patent Laws, in their application to the increas-
ing and ever-varying mechanical developments of
the laws of phenomena, in their progress from obvious
to refined and intangible distinctions, which charac-
terize the cases which he has been called upon to
decide, would not only have enhanced the value of
these volumes, but would have greatly enriched the
science of mechanical jurisprudence.

Such of these decisions, however, as may have been
preserved, will be collected and embraced in the sub-
sequent volumes of these reports.

JAMES B. ROBB.

BOSTON, MAY 1st, 1854.