Court for the District of Columbia, to either of the three judges thereof, at the election of the appellant. Preliminary to which, the appellant must notify the office of such an appeal, which he may do simply by filing a prayer for one; and must also file in the office a statement of the reasons for such appeal, accompanied with the sum of $25, being the fee charged thereon.

It is unfortunately true that parties applying for patents, and being refused, imagine that an appeal to the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, for redress is all the step necessary to finally determine their claims. Under other circumstances it would be; but the business of this character, which has accumulated before the court, cannot be disposed of for many years; and thus appeals are apt to be postponed for the natural lifetime of the appellant. Some provision of law is called for to meet this great evil; and one of greater magnitude it is liable to become as whims or personal prejudices of the Commissioner may dictate, in treating the applications for patents. On this score, however, no occasion for complaint will probably ever arise; but this view of probabilities, does not lessen the necessity for some safeguard of law in the premises. When, at length, a decision is had in the Circuit Court for the District of Columbia, for or against the appellant, he may contend farther for his assumed right in other of the courts of the United States, to wit:

"SECT. 11. * * * Provided, That no opinion

or decision of the judge, in any such case, shall preclude any person interested in favour or against the validity of a patent which has, or may hereafter be, granted, from the right to contest the same in any judicial court in any action in which its validity may come in question." [Proviso, sect. 11, act March 3, 1839.

The ground f the Commissioner's refusal to grant a patent must depend-1. On a "want of novelty and usefulness in the thing designed to be patented." 2. "Conflicting claims to ownership of the thing presented." The final disposition of all cases, in which appeals are taken, is noticed hereafter, [See "Orders in Appeals from the Commissioner of Patents," marked XIX., page 88.]

By the 12th section of the act of 1839, the "Commissioner of Patents shall have power to make all such regulations, in respect to the taking of evidence to be used in contested cases before him, as may,” in his opinion, "be just and reasonable;" and by a legal construction of this clause, he may reject or admit such evidence only as, in his view, may "be just and reasonable," whatever parties to the contrary may think.

The duties of this functionary, therefore, as has been said, are not only onerous and arduous, but responsible; and it must depend mainly upon his general business capacity, sound discretion, and practical talents, if the office is made available and useful to the public. Incapacity, or abuse of the powers entrusted to him, would prove highly de

trimental in retarding the progress of inventive genius in this country, and entail needless litigations, to the great injury of individuals.

All applications for information to the Patent Office, should be addressed in writing to the Commissioner, who alone is authorized to furnish such information. And it is requisite to observe, that letters addressed to the office, whether directed to the Commissioner or otherwise, are rarely answered, if the application be to ascertain whether a certain article, contrivance, or invention has been patented; for such information cannot be furnished, except by the sacrifice of more time and labour than the office is willing to bestow.

A party, however, is not debarred from corresponding with the department through an intermediate agent, provided such agent is furnished with a power of attorney, duly executed, and filed of record in the Patent Office. But when a party has thus conferred the trust upon another, the Commissioner reserves the right of treating with him alone. Still if the principal becomes dissatisfied, he may revoke the power of attorney; and the Commissioner, on receiving a notification of the same, will continue the correspondence with the principal. For the reason which influences the Commissioner to establish this rule, the assignee of the entire interest in an invention, is alone entitled to hold correspondence with the office, to the exclusion of the inventor. Letters to and from the Com missioner go through the mails free of postage.

The brief digest and general explanations which follow, supply all the information necessary, to enable an applicant to prosecute any claim under the patent laws of the United States. But, that there may be no misleading, as to technical terms, it is deemed expedient to furnish illustrations of the spirit of the laws from actual examples. Thus, "the discovery of any new principle, merely, is not entitled to a patent. It must be reduced to practice; and must be made available in some practical form. To have found out that a blast of hot air, instead of cold, would increase the product of the furnace, and change the nature of the iron, was not enough. But when one set of machinery had been contrived, by which this was carried into effect, it was held that the patentee was protected, not only in the use of the particular machinery employed by him, but in the use of the hot blast in every form." The principle had been put to practical use, which not only secured the right to the discovery, but the machinery employed in adapting the principle. More than this, "other machinery, better calculated for the was held to be an infringement." Again, Again, "the discovery of any new natural substance" is also precluded by the above language, and "entitles no one to the exclusive use of it," unless "new properties are imparted to the substance by an artificial process," in which case a patent would issue to the discoverer, and secure to him all the benefits resulting therefrom. Likewise, "a mere change of

purpose

proportions is not regarded," unless some new and useful property is established, or something equivalent thereto. For example, "a patent having been obtained for an improvement in making friction matches, with a new compound, objection was made to it because the same ingredients had been used for the purpose before; but the objection was overruled, and the patent sustained, on the ground that they had never been employed in the same combination"-namely, the production of the article at a cheaper rate. So "the mere substitution of one well known mechanical equivalent for another, as of cog-wheels for belting, is not regarded as an improvement within the meaning of the act," for neither the principle nor the practice of the discovery, could be regarded as being strictly new, or entitling to the benefit of a patent. Nevertheless, a new combination, instead of substitution, of well-known mechanical contrivances, for a certain purpose, may form the basis of a claim for a patent, if the purpose, by the means proposed, is better accomplished, or is accomplished at a reduction of cost. "And when a combination would be thus protected, if all the parts were old, and it embraces some new device, both the combination and device may be protected under the same patent." The "application of any known process to effect a new result, entirely different from any former one for which it has been employed," is patentable. For example, the use of the flame of gas "to singe off the superfluous and loose fibres of lace," was deemed