"A patent is an adjudication and a contract, an adjudication by a quasi judicial body, the officials of the Patent Office, that the device of the combination patented was the product of the genius of an inventor, and a contract of the United States with the patentee that he shall enjoy the exclusive right to use and vend the invention for 17 years. That adjudication and that contract, like the adjudications of other quasi judicial bodies, are sustained by a strong legal presumption that they are right, just, and valid, and unless they are without doubt void on their faces, they may not lawfully be set aside or disregarded withont full proof of their invalidity." Luten v. Kansas City Bridge Co. 285 Fed. at 844.

"A patent is the government's signed and sealed grant of a monopoly. Under the Constitution, Congress could have provided for the grant of monopolies to inventors against which the citizen could set up no defenses. Congress named certain permissible defenses, of which fraud and collusion in following the application to issuance is not one. Therefore a patent procured by fraud or collusion or by illegal procedure can be attacked only by the government." Western Glass Co. v. Schmertz Wire

Glass Co., 185 Fed. at 791.

"Unless letters patent are absolutely void on the face of them, or the issuing of them was without authority, or was prohibited by statute, they can only be avoided in a regular course of pleading, in which the fraud, irregularity, or mistake is regularly put in issue. The principle has been frequently admitted, that the fraud must appear on the face of the patent to render it void in a court of law, and that when the fraud or other defect arises on circumstances, debars the grant, the grant is voidable only by suit ** The regular tribunal is chancery, founded on a proceeding by seire facias or by bill of information * * The law made it the duty of the Commissioner to examine and decide. He had full jurisdiction. The function he performed was judicial in its character. No provision is made for appeal or review * *. His decisions must be held conclusive, until the patent is impeached in

a proceeding had directly for that purpose according to the rules which define the remedy, as shown by the precedents and authorities upon the subject." Providence Rubber Co. v. Goodyear, 9 Wall. at 797.

"The specification and claims of a patent constitute a contract between the United States and the patentee, and they are to be read and construed together in the same way and by the same rules by which other contracts are interpreted." Hudson Mfg. Co. v. Louden Machinery Co., 276 Fed. at 531.

"A patent is a contract** The general rules for the interpretation of grants and contracts govern its construction, and the equitable principle that one who has derived great benefit from the performance of a contract ought not to be allowed to escape its burdens without cogent reasons is not inapplicable in its exposition. Among the primary rules for the construction of a contract are these: The court should put itself in the place of the parties at the time it is made, and should read its terms in the light of the facts and circumstances which then surround them. When the intention of the parties. is manifest, it should control, regardless of inapt expressions and technical rules. In cases of doubtful validity or of ambiguous terms, that construction should be adopted which sustains and vitalizes the agreement, rather than that which destroys or paralyzes it. Prior negotiations are merged in the contract, and while they may be considered to interpret its purpose, they must not be permitted to contradict or modify its express meaning." National Hollow B. B. Co. v. Interchangeable B. B. Co., 106 Fed. at 701.

"A patent is a contract between the government and the patentee, whereby the latter is granted the exclusive right to make, use and vend his invention for a specified time, after which such right is to inure to the benefit of the public. And the rule for the construction of contracts generally controls in its interpretation, and when the terms are plain, and the intention of the parties clearly manifest therefrom, they must prevail." Den

ning Wire and Fence Co. v. American Steel and Wire Co., 169 Fed. 793.

"It is well settled by authorities binding upon me that in this circuit we do not look to such exterior expression of intent, but treat a patent as we should a will, a deed, or any other instrument intended to be a final memorial of the parties' intention." Campbell Metal Window Corp. v. S. H. Pomery & Co. 300 Fed. at 874.

"For whatever reason it may have arisen, it is of course true that a patent, unlike other formal instruments of the sort, although it is the final embodiment of the purposes of the parties, is subject in its interpretation to the prior negotiations of the parties in a single instance. Whether or not this is legally an anomaly, so far as we know there is no decision which goes further than to hold that, where the applicant has assented to changes in a claim upon a reference in the Patent Office, he may not, by subsequent construction, resort to the elements which he has thus abandoned. We read the

claims as they are written, like the language of any other formal statement drawn up as the final memorial of the parties' intentions." Auto Pneumatic Action Co. v. Kindler and Collins, 247 Fed. at 328.

"The patentee cannot be heard to assert that his invention as patented has the scope it would have had if the rejected claim had been allowed. The basis of this rule is that one who seeks a patent from the government is making a contract with the government as to the extent and operation of a monopoly. If he asserts a claim which the Patent Office rejects, and he thereafter accepts a patent without the allowance of such a claim, the patent is issued on the condition of his acquiescence therein, and he cannot be heard ever afterwards to deny the rightfulness of the disallowance. The government parted with its patent on the faith of his acquiescence in the rejection of the claim, hence he cannot be permitted to revive it after having accepted the benefit of the patent without it." McCormick Harvesting Machine Co. v. C. Aultman & Co., 69 Fed. at 399.

"Inventions secured by Letters Patent are property in the holder of the patents, and as such are as much entitled to protection as any other property, consisting of a franchise, during the term for which the franchise or the exclusive right is granted. Letters Patent are not to be regarded as monopolies, created by the executive authority at the expense and to the prejudice of all the community except the persons therein named as patentees, but as public franchise granted to the inventors of new and useful improvements for the purpose of securing to them, as such inventors, for the limited term therein mentioned, the exclusive right and liberty to make and use and vend to others to be used their own inventions, as tending to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, and as matter of compensation to the inventors for their labor, toil, and expense in making the inventions, and reducing the same to practice for the public benefit, as contemplated by the Constitution and sanctioned by the laws of Congress." Seymour v. Osborne, 11 Wall. 533.

"The franchise which the patent grants consists altogether in the right to exclude anyone from making, using or vending the thing patented without permission from the patentee. This is all he obtains by the patent." Bloomer v. McQuewan et al, 14 How. 549.

"The inventor gets the privilege to exclude the public from its common-law rights for a definite term. The public gets the advantage of a disclosure of something new, which the inventor might otherwise have kept secret." Waterbury Buckle Co. v. G. E. Prentice Mfg. Co., 294 Fed. at 983.

"By granting letters patent for an invention, the government makes no transfer to the patentee of a right, privilege, or estate theretofore vested in itself. The essential right is in the inventor before he obtains a patThe letters constitute, under the law, simply prima facie evidence of the patentee's right to the invention described, as being his own discovery.” Western Electric Co. v. Sperry Electric Co., 59 Fed. at 296.

ent.

*

"A patent right is a property right, in respect to which the validity of the grant is analogous to a good title to other property. ** Letters Patent give only the right to assert a property right, and are barely, if anything, more than prima facie evidence of it." Concrete Appliances Co. v. Gomery, 284 Fed. at 521.

"An inventor must do more than give cues for future experiment Unless he is dealing with elements whose action and reaction is known and certain, he is bound to disclose how the combination will operate. A patent is the reward of a tested contribution to the art, not of a pregnant surmise or a promising hypothesis". H. Ward Leonard, Inc. v. Maxwell Motor Sales Corp., 252 Fed. at 590.

"While the courts are reluctant to avoid a grant for failure to describe it, especially where the grantee has occupied territory under it, they have often been compelled to do so. If an invention has gone into general use, and skilled workmen have been able to construct the device or machine in an acceptable form, defects in description will often be overlooked. * * This liberal rule should not apply, and never has been applied, to a patent which has not had a pronounced success." Karl Kiefer, Machine Co. v. Unionwerke, A. G., 218 Fed. at 856.

"As patents are procured ex parte, the public is not bound by them, but the patentees are. Keystone Bridge Co. v. Phoenix Iron Co., 95 U. S. at 279.

"The people, in a sense, are parties to every patent." Holmes Electric Co. v. Metropolitan Burglar Alarm Co., 33 Fed. at 259.

* is entering a realm

"One who seeks a patent*** where the rights of the public are involved." National Machine Corp. v. Benthall Machine Co., 241 Fed. at 87. "Within his domain the patentee is czar." Victor Talking Machine Co. v. Fair, 123 Fed. 426.

"Patents are public records. All persons are bound to take notice of their contents, and consequently should have the right to obtain copies of them. These records being in the care and custody of the Commissioner of