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essary on behalf of the applicant to revive his case. To complete that action and make it effectual his petition must be accompanied with a specific demand for such proposed action as the status of the case may require. Thus, if the case has been but once rejected, the petition for renewal must be accompanied by a demand for a second examination, or by an amendment. If it has been twice rejected, the petition will accompany the appeal or the prayer to the Commissioner for further leave to amend. If it has been rejected by the board, the petition must be filed with the appeal to the Commissioner. If it has been rejected by the Commissioner, there can be no renewal, unless an appeal to the supreme court of the District of Columbia has been taken.

"Petitions for renewal do not differ, in this respect, from the petition for an original or reissued patent, or for the renewal of an application upon which the final fee has not been made for an extension or for an appeal. In all of these cases action is proposed or requested, which it is expected the office will proceed to make with reasonable diligence.

"I hold, therefore, that the filing of a naked petition for the removal of a rejected application does not of itself renew the case; and that if such petition is not accompanied or followed up by a demand for the action appropriate to the next stage beyond that at which the renewal finds it, the case will, after January 8, 1871, be treated as abandoned." (Ib.)

SEC.

XII. Appeal to Examiners-in-Chief.

210. Duties of examiners-in-chief. 211. Résumé of the laws constituting the board.

212. Examiners to be governed by

decisions of the Commissioner. 213. When applicant may appeal. 214. Judicial and executive acts. 215. Adverse decisions only revised.

SEC.

218. Case may be remanded for fur-
ther examination.

219. Delegated discretion.
220. Commissioner may withhold
patent after favorable decis-
ion.

221. Petition to set forth reasons of
appeal.

216. No rehearing allowed except 222. Form of appeal from exam

upon order of Commissioner.

217. Primary examiner cannot reconsider without Commissioner's order.

iner.

223. Form of appeal from examiner in charge of interfer

ences.

210. DUTIES OF EXAMINERS-IN-CHIEF.-The examinersin-chief shall be persons of competent legal knowledge and scientific ability, whose duty it shall be, on the written petition of the appellant, to revise and determine upon the validity of the adverse decisions of examiners upon applications for patents, and for reissues of patents, and in interference cases; and, when required by the Commissioner, they shall hear and report upon claims for extensions, and perform such other like duties as he may assign them. (Act of July 8, 1870, § 10.)

211. RÉSUMÉ OF THE LAWS CONSTITUTING THE BOARD OF EXAMINERS-IN-CHIEF.-Examiners are first named in the act of 1836, in which provision is made for the appointment of one who is called "an examining clerk." Their duties are nowhere mentioned in the law, except as they may be supposed to be alluded to in the seventh section of the same act, where it is said that "the Commissioner shall make, or cause to be made, an examina

tion of the alleged new invention or discovery, and if, on any such examination, it shall not appear to the Commissioner, &c., if the Commissioner shall deem it to be sufficiently useful and important, it shall be his duty to issue a patent therefor."

Prior to the passage of the act of 1861, a board of appeal, consisting of three principal examiners, had been appointed by the Commissioner for the purpose of relieving him from the labor of hearing appeals, whose decisions, when affirmed or reversed by the Commissioner, became the action of the office. It was to make permanent provision for this board that the act of 1861 was passed.

That act provides: "That for the purpose of securing greater uniformity of action in the grant and refusal of -letters patent, there shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, three examiners-in-chief, at an annual salary of $3,000 each, to be composed of persons of competent legal knowledge and scientific ability, whose duty it shall be, on the written petition of the applicant for that purpose being filed, to revise and determine upon the validity of decisions made by examiners when adverse to the grant of letters patent; and also to revise and determine in like manner upon the validity of the decisions of examiners in interference cases and when required by the Commissioner in applications for the extension of patents, and to perform such other duties as may be assigned to them by the Commissioner; that from their decisions appeals may be taken to the Commissioner of Patents in person, upon payment of the fee hereinafter prescribed; that the said examiners-in-chief shall be governed in their action by

the rules to be prescribed by the Commissioner of Patents."

Except as to the manner of their appointment, this is substantially the old appeal board. These new officers are made, by express provision of law, subordinate to the Commissioner; are required "to perform such other duties as may be assigned to them" by him, and are required to be governed in "their action," upon all the subjects committed to them, both by the law and the Commissioner, "by the rules to be prescribed" by him. (Hull ex parte, Commissioners' Decisions, 1869, p. 68.)

212. EXAMINERS-IN-CHIEF TO BE GOVERNED BY THE RULES AND DECISIONS OF THE COMMISSIONER.-It follows, therefore, that the board of examiners, like all other examiners, are controlled in their action by the rules. of the office, or any rules of practice announced by the Commissioner, or any construction of such rules or of the law, made by him, as may be of general application.

Indeed, in no other way can "uniformity of action" be secured. If the board are to affirm to-day and reverse to-morrow under the same state of facts-if they are to follow the Commissioner in this decision, and to differ from him in that-it is manifest that, so far from securing uniformity, they would soon plunge the office into inextricable confusion. Their true office is, while relieving the Commissioner of the mass of appeals which come from the primary examiners, so to deal with those appeals as to enforce upon the examiners his decisions and his administration of the office, and thus secure uni. formity. They are not to make law for the Commissioner; but, both by the appeal allowed to him from

them, and by the express provisions of the act, he is to make law for them.

It will be noticed that appeals may be taken from the primary examiner to the board of examiners-in-chief from decisions "when adverse to the grant of letters patent." No such provision is made as to appeals to the Commissioner from the board. Such appeal is "from their decisions." In both instances the law is silent as to decisions either by the primary examiners or the examiners-in-chief, when such decisions are not adverse to the grant of letters patent.

Such decisions undoubtedly remain unaffected by the act of 1861. They remain, as they always were, under the control of the Commissioner, as the executive head of the office. He prescribes the duties of the examiners. He is himself an examiner, under the act of 1836, and by the terms of that act it is made his duty to "superin-. tend, execute, and perform all such acts and things touching and respecting the granting and issuing of patents for new and useful discoveries, &c., as are herein provided for, or shall hereafter by law be directed to be done and performed." He countersigns the patent, and after the indorsement of the examiner upon it touching his examination, the Commissioner, or his agent, must authorize its issue, and cause the seal of the office to be affixed to it. (Ib.)

213. WHEN APPLICANT MAY APPEAL.-Every applicant for a patent or the reissue of a patent, any of the claims of which have been twice rejected, and every party to an interference, may appeal from the decision of the primary examiner, or of the examiner in charge of interference, in such case, to the board of examiners-in-chief, having

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