there was no right in admiralty to recover by libel against a vessel for personal injuries resulting in death. It was urged that Lord Campbell's Act, and the various statutes in the United States following that act, had not been extended to the admiralty courts. In the opinion the Court said:

The district courts having the power to hear and decide all cases arising under this jurisdiction, when a prohibition is applied for, the question is not whether a libellant can recover in the suit he has begun, but whether he can go into a court of admiralty to have his right determined.

And farther on in the same case, the Court said:

So here, the court of admiralty has jurisdiction of the vessel, and the subject matter of the action, to-wit: the collision. It is competent to try the facts, as we think, to determine whether, since the common law courts in England, and to a large extent in the United States, are permitted to estimate damages which a particular person has sustained by the wrongful killing of another, the courts of admiralty may not do the same thing. If the district court entertains a suit an appeal lies. Under these circumstances, it seems to us clear that the admiralty courts are competent to determine the questions involved, and that we ought not to issue the prohibition asked for.

In the late case, in re Gregory, Petitioner (219 U. S., 210), Mr. Justice Hughes, in dealing with the case in which the jurisdiction of the Police Court of the District of Columbia was attacked, in passing upon the jurisdiction of that court in a case wherein it was alleged that the proceedings taken were entirely beyond its jurisdiction, pointed out clearly what was in fact the jurisdiction. In that case an act of Congress had been passed applicable in the District of Columbia, providing among other things a license upon certain businesses, including that of proprietors of gift enterprises. That act provided that violations in respect of gift enterprises should be prosecuted by information filed for or on behalf of the District of Columbia in the Police Court of the District. The Court, speaking through Mr. Justice Hughes, in that case said:

We have then a statute with valid operation. This being established, there can be no question that it conferred upon the police court, by its express terms, jurisdiction of the offense and that the court tried and convicted the petitioner.

Here in this application this Court does not review the correctness of the conclusion of the police court as to the violation of the statute by the petitioner, or of the decision of the Court of Appeals of the District as to the sufficiency of the information filed against it. The question here is not one of guilt or innocence, but simply whether the court had jurisdiction to try the issues, and as we find that the statute conferred that jurisdiction, the application for a writ of habeas corpus must be denied.

In the case of U. S., ex rel. Morris, v. Scott (25 App. D. C., 88) Morris was being prosecuted in the police court for the alleged violation of a municipal regulation which was alleged to be invalid. The police court had express jurisdiction under the act of Congress of all

offenses against municipal ordinances and regulations in force in the District of Columbia. Justice Shepard, in delivering the opinion of the court of appeals, stated:

Whether the invalidity of a regulation about to be enforced in that court presents such a case of excess of jurisdiction as would justify the issue of the writ presents a question of difficulty which the exigency of the present case does not require us to determine. The validity of the regulation is a question of law which the police court must necessarily determine in the exercise of its jurisdiction of the subject matter. If decided adversely to the petitioner and conviction follows, he may apply for a writ of error to review the judgment.

The writ of prohibition was accordingly refused, the rule discharged and the petition dismissed.

In People v. Liscomb (60 N. Y., 559), which was a habeas corpus case, the court, in discussing jurisdiction, said:

The court had jurisdiction of the person of the accused, and of criminal offenses committed within the county of New York, and necessarily had jurisdiction to pass upon the form and sufficiency of the indictment and the order and course of the trial, and decide every question that arose in its progress; and whether the determination of the court upon any or all of the questions was right or wrong did not affect the jurisdiction. In other words, the court had jurisdiction to make wrong as well as right decisions in all stages of the prosecution; and whether those made were right or wrong cannot be raised on habeas corpus.

In the case ex parte Park & Tilford, Petitioners, decided in the Supreme Court of the United States on November 5, 1917, being case No. 24, original (245 U. S., 83), there was a petition for a writ of mandamus to require the judges of the United States Court of Customs Appeals to take jurisdiction of the petitioners' cause and to consider and decide the same upon its merits. The rule to show cause having been issued, the judges made return, setting forth the proceedings in the Court of Customs Appeals and alleged that the court had decided the case of the petitioners, and if the writ of mandamus issued it would only require it to do that which it had already done. In this case, the petitioners had imported certain merchandise under the Tariff Act of 1913. The goods were assessed by the collector of the port of New York as dutiable at a certain value. The Tariff Act of 1913 contained a provision directing the Secretary of the Treasury, in certain cases, to order the assessment of duty on imported goods on a different basis of value from that applied to petitioners' goods. In this case, the petitioners requested the Secretary of the Treasury to act in accordance with what they claimed was the positive direction of the Tariff Act. This the Secretary refused to do, alleging that the practice of the Treasury Department in construing the law put the petitioners outside the relief asked. The petitioners protested and the protest was submitted to the Board of General Appraisers, and was overruled, and the importers appealed to

the Court of Customs Appeals. The court, in deciding the appeal, simply held that the Secretary's refusal to direct the Collector of Customs to revalue imports was not reviewable by the Board of General Appraisers, nor by the Court of Customs Appeals. The petition for the writ of mandamus in the present case was then filed. The Supreme Court, in its decision, held that by hearing and considering the appeal the Court of Customs Appeals took jurisdiction of the case of the petitioners and decided it. The opinion stated, in substance, that whether or not the Secretary of the Treasury properly refused to accede to the petitioners' application for revaluation was immaterial, as was also the soundness of the view of the Court of Customs Appeals that under the statute that court had no authority to review the action of the Secretary of the Treasury. In the course of the opinion Mr. Justice Day said:

It is elementary that the writ of mandamus will not issue to require the court to make a particular decision, and may only be invoked where the purpose is to require action of a court of competent jurisdiction, where such court has refused to exercise the power of decision with which it is invested by law. We think it clear that the Court of Customs Appeals did take jurisdiction of the case of the petitioner on appeal from the order of the Board of General Appraisers, and decided it according to its interpretation of the statutes of the United States. These facts warrant the statements of the respondents in their return-that if the writ should issue, requiring a decision of the case, they could only repeat the decision which they have already made. In the case ex parte Park Square Automobile Station, Petitioner, (244 U. S., 412), the American Locomotive Company, a corporation. of the State of New York, was carrying on business in New Hampshire, and the petitioner, a Maine corporation, commenced suit for breach of contract against the American Locomotive Company in a New Hampshire State court. In that court the defendant Locomotive Company prayed a removal of the case, not to the District Court of the United States for the District of New Hampshire, but to the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York. This prayer was denied by the State court. Thereafter the Locomotive Company, executing a bond for removal, filed the record in the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York. The plaintiff moved to remand, not because the case was not removable, but on the ground that under the Federal statute it was solely entitled to be removed to the District Court of the United States for the District of New Hampshire. The motion being denied upon petition a rule was issued to the District Court of the Northern District of New York to show cause why a writ of mandamus should not be granted directing the district court to reverse its ruling and remand the cause, the contention of the petitioner being that manifest error was committed in taking jurisdiction on the removal because the case was removable under

the statute to the District Court of the United States for the District of New Hampshire alone. The Supreme Court, however, upon hearing, discharged the rule, holding that, notwithstanding the lower court erred in refusing to remand the cause and in taking jurisdiction, as such error was susceptible of being reviewed by the regular methods provided by the statute, that is, by review of the circuit court of appeals if the whole case were taken to that court, or by the Supreme Court itself in the exercise of its power to issue a writ of certiorari in a proper cause, there was no power to substitute the writ of mandamus as a means of reviewing for the express remedial processes created by the statute for such purposes. In the course of the opinion Chief Justice White said:

It is not disputable that the proposition thus relied upon is well founded, and hence absolutely disbars us from reviewing by mandamus the action of the court below complained of, whatever may be our conviction as to its clear error.

The whole proceedings in the present case show a jurisdiction in the Commissioner of Patents to hear and determine the questions involved in the alleged right of the petitioner to his patent which he now says was illegally denied him. It is not necessary to pass upon the accuracy of that allegation. As was said by a distinguished jurist:

A court may have jurisdiction to make wrong decisions as well as right ones. If the petitioner desired a direct review of the action of the Commissioner of Patents in finally denying his application and granting priority of invention to Eppler in the interference proceeding, the statute gave him the right to an appeal to the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia.

Finally, with a general jurisdiction in the Commissioner of Patents to hear and determine interference proceedings, in the exercise of a discretion conferred upon him by law, the petitioner has submitted himself to that jurisdiction. About April 24, 1916, he filed a petition with the Commissioner of Patents to reopen interference No. 35,033, the proceeding in which a decision against him and awarding priority to Eppler had been rendered. The counsel for the petitioner and Eppler were heard, the Commissioner of Patents took that petition under consideration, and denied the petition. It does not require the citation of authorities, although there are many, to support the proposition that when parties have submitted to a court or quasi-judicial officer a case of the sort within its or his jurisdiction and that case has been decided, they cannot thereafter be heard to deny the jurisdiction.

Rule discharged.

[U. S. District Court-Southern District of New York.]

PROCTER & GAMBLE COMPANY v. BERLIN MILLS COMPANY.

PATENTABILITY

Decided October 3, 1917.

253 O. G., 747.

HYDROGENATION OF OIL.

The patent to Burchenal, No. 1,135,351, relating to hydrogenation of oil, claims 1 and 2, Held unpatentable in view of the prior art, and, if properly construed, not infringed.

Messrs. Kerr, Page, Cooper & Hayward (Mr. Alfred N. Allen, Mr. Livingston Gifford, and Mr. Thomas B. Kerr of counsel) for the complainant.

Mr. John C. Pennie (Mr. Marcus B. May and Mr. John C. Pennie of counsel) for the defendant.

HAND, Dis. J.:

This suit is for infringement of Patent No. 1,135,351, granted to the complainant as assignee of John J. Burchenal on April 13th, 1915. The application for the patent was filed November 10th, 1910. The specification states that the invention is for a food product consisting of a vegetable oil, preferably cotton-seed oil, partially hydrogenized and hardened to a homogeneous white or yellowish semisolid closely simulating lard.

Claims 1 and 2 alone are in issue and read as follows:

1. A homogeneous lard-like food product consisting of an incompletely hydrogenized vegetable oil.

2. A homogeneous lard-like food product consisting of incompletely hydrogenized cotton-seed oil.

The special object of the invention is, according to the specification

to provide a new food product for a shortening in cooking in which the liability to become rancid is minimized and in which the components of such vegetable oils which are inferior and detrimental to use as such a food product have been to a large extent converted into a higher and more wholesome form. All such vegetable oils contain glycerids of unsaturated fatty acids and among these notable quantities of fatty glycerids of lower saturation than olein. It is the presence of these glycerids of lower saturation that seriously affects the rancidity of the material. Oxidation is largely the cause of rancidity, which oxidation weakens the fat at the point of absorption at the double bonds, and these glycerids of lesser saturation readily absorb oxygen from the air at ordinary temperatures while the more highly saturated glycerids, as olein, only absorb oxygen at elevated temperatures. It is evident, therefore, that oils or fats containing notable quantities of glycerids of linollic acid or of lesser saturation are distinctly inferior as an edible product to those containing a minimum of these glycerids with a larger per cent of olein. On the other hand, while it is important to get rid of the readily oxidizable glycer