his authorized agent or attorney, praying an appeal and setting forth briefly and distinctly the reasons upon which the appeal is taken. (Patent Office Rules, July, 1870.) 222. FORM OF APPEAL FROM THE EXAMINER TO THE EXAMINERS-IN-CHIEF. To the Commissioner of Patents. SIR: I hereby appeal to the examiners-in-chief from the decision of the principal examiner, in the matter of my application for letters patent for an improvement in wagon brakes, which, on the 20th day of July, 1869, was rejected the second time. The following are assigned for reasons of appeal: [Here follow reasons.] LEMUEL LOOKUP. 223. FORM OF APPEAL FROM THE EXAMINER IN CHARGE OF INTERFERENCES TO THE EXAMINERS-IN-CHIEF. To the Commissioner of Patents. SIR: I hereby appeal to the examiners-in-chief from the decision of the principal examiner in charge, in the matter of the interference between my application for letters patent for improvement in sewing machines and the letters patent of Elias Coleman, in which priority of invention was awarded to said Coleman. The following are assigned for reasons for appeal: [Here follow reasons.] WILLIAM SYPHAX. the action of his predecessor. 231. Case may be remanded to ex 224. APPEAL FROM THE EXAMINERS-IN-CHIEF.-If the applicant is dissatisfied with the decisions of the examiners-in-chief he may, on payment of the duty required by law, appeal to the Commissioner in person. (Act of July 8, 1870, § 46.) All cases which have been acted on by the board of examiners-in-chief may be brought before the Commissioner in person, upon a written request to that effect, and upon the payment of the fee of twenty dollars required by law. (Patent Office Rules, July, 1870.) 225. A CASE DELIBERATELY DECIDED BY ONE COMMISSIONER WILL NOT BE DISTURBED BY HIS SUCCESSOR.-The only remaining remedy will be by appeal, in those cases allowed by law, to the supreme court of the District of Columbia sitting in banc. (Ib.) The Commissioner will not review the action of his predecessor, or of the appellate judge in the same case. (J. W. Orr ex parte, Commissioners' Decisions, 1869, p. 33.) 226. TIME OF HEARING.-All cases pending before the Commissioner will stand for argument at one o'clock on the day of hearing. If either party in a contested case, or the appellant in an ex parte case, appear at that time, he will be heard. (Patent Office Rules, July, 1870.) 227. MOTIONS.-Reasonable notice of all motions, and copies of the motion papers and affidavits, must be served upon the opposite party or his attorney; and in contested cases no motions will be heard in the absence of the other party, except upon default after due notice; nor will a case be taken up for oral argument after the day of hearing, except by consent of both parties. (Ib.) 228. LIMITATION OF ORAL ARGUMENTS.-Unless otherwise ordered before the hearing begins, oral arguments will be limited to one hour for each counsel. (Ib.) 229. NEW ASSIGNMENT.-If the engagements of the tribunal before whom the case is pending are such as to prevent it from being taken up on the day of hearing, a new assignment will be made, or the case will be continued from day to day until heard. (Ib.) 230. DECISIONS TURNING UPON QUESTIONS OF FACT WILL NOT BE REVERSED UNLESS RENDERED WITHOUT OR AGAINST EVIDENCE. The appeal to the board of examiners, and to the Commissioner and judge, was given to determine disputed points of law, rather than to review mere questions of fact. Upon such questions the examiner is as likely to be right as the Commissioner. It is familiar law, that the verdict of a jury, or the finding of a judge upon submission, upon facts, will not be disturbed by the appellate tribunal, except in cases where the verdict or judgment is manifestly without evidence, or beyond a reasonable doubt against evidence. The mere fact that the appellate judge feels that if the question had been originally tried before him he would have come to a different conclusion from the lower tribunal, (no question of law being involved,) will not justify him in disturbing the judgment of that tribunal, where there was any evidence to sustain it. (Fawcett v. Graham, Commissioners' Decisions, 1869, p. 113.) In the case of Blanchard v. Strain, the Commissioner says: "The testimony is very voluminous, covering some three hundred and seventy-five pages of manuscript. The examiner in charge of interferences and the examiners-in-chief have both decided in favor of Strain. The question involved is purely one of fact, depending upon the credibility of contradicting witnesses. "I cannot believe it was ever intended that in a case like this, where no legal question is involved, the parties should be able, by appeal, to compel four tribunals to read over a great mass of testimony, with a view of pronouncing independent judgments upon the evidence, without reference to the opinions of those who had already considered it. If the fact that the examiner and examiners-in-chief have both found the weight of evidence with Strain is to have no weight with me—if I am to throw it aside and examine the case as if they had never looked at it-it is obvious that the two trials before them might as well have been dispensed with, and that all such cases might as well be tried before the Commissioner or appellate judge in the first instance. "The duty of the Commissioner in this class of cases is, in my opinion, fully discharged when he has so far examined the case as to find that the question involved is purely one of fact, and that the decision of the board upon the facts is not without evidence, or against the manifest weight of evidence. (See Fawcett v. Graham, Commissioners' Decisions, 1869, p. 113.) The verdict upon the facts of four persons skilled in such examinations ought to be as persuasive with the Commissioner as the verdict of a jury with the judge upon a motion for a new trial." (Commissioners' Decisions June 6, 1870.) In the case of White v. Purdy, the Commissioner says: "Upon a state of facts substantially similar, I held, in Fawcett v. Graham, (Commissioners' Decisions, 1869, p. 113,) Blanchard v. Strain, (ib., June, 1870, p. 26,) and Jeffers v. Duehamin, (ib., September, 1870,) that where a case in interference turns wholly upon a question of fact, and the evidence is conflicting, and both of the tribunals below have decided the same way, the Commissioner will not reverse the former decisions, unless they have been rendered without evidence, or against the manifest weight of the evidence. "As the correctness of this ruling has been challenged by the appellant in the present case, it may be well to state more fully the reason and authority by which it is supported. "The appellant seems to suppose that the fact that an appeal is allowed to the Commissioner necessarily requires that officer to disregard the findings below; that he should treat them as if they had never been made, and should take up the case and examine it as a case of first impression, giving precisely the same decision as he would have done if he had heard it originally, instead of the examiner of interferences. 66 This view cannot be admitted to be sound. The appeal is from the decision of the examiner or examiners-in-chief, and it can hardly have been intended that the Commissioner should ignore the fact that there had been any decision whatever. On the contrary, it would seem manifest that the fact that a decision had been rendered, from which an appeal had been taken, must exercise such an influence in a case of doubt, or where testimony was nicely balanced, as to determine the appellate tribunal to follow and sustain the decision rather than to overturn it. For, in such a case, a mind in doubt might well suffer those doubts to be resolved in the direction in which another mind, competent to judge, had already reached and announced a decision. "Any other view would render the trials before the examiner and examiners-in-chief worse than useless. Cases might as well be tried in the first instance by the Commissioner, and the delay and expense of the former |