Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/88

HENRÏ tl. FEANOESTOWN SOAP-STONB 00. 81 �ments of his own. Granting, then, that the sales themselves were not experiments, and that at least two of the stoves contained the completee invention, does it save the forfeiture that the inventer himself was still trying his invention ? I think not. The courts very properly lirait the meaning of "public use" to a use in the ordinary -way, and they may so limit the word "sale," if they ean ever be persuaded of the fact; but, whether use or sale, that particular transaction must be experimental, or it is within the forfeiture of the statute. �But, further, I do not find the fact to be that the inventer was still experimenting. As I read the evidence, ail that Dodge was then trying to do was to bring his stoves into the highest state of mechanical perfection. The precise day of the Patch sale is not proved; but it was in December, 1854, and the stove had upon it the words "registered for patent, 1854," which confirms the conclusion that it was after the invention was complete. �Neither filing the model, nor writing the paper eommonly called an application, gives the date of the application from which the two years are to be reckoned. "Application," in this connection, includes the paper, or some written paper, and its presentation to the commissiouer. One who desires a patent for his invention may apply in writing to the com- missiouer. There is no evidence that any writing accompa- nied the model, and none that any application was made until February 14, 1857. It would be most dangerous to hold that an application signed and kept in the inventor's pocket would answer the demand of the statute. In BirdsaU V. McDonald, 6 Off. Gaz. 682, cited for the plaintiff, the solic- itor neglected to file the application, and the court held that his neglect was not evidence of the inventor's abandonment of his invention. On the point of sale Mr. Justice Swayne says: "He sold no machine prier to two years before the filing of his application." As to filing the model see Draper V. Wattles, 16 Off. Gaz. 629. �The time allowed for the use and sale of the invention ia �v.2,no.l— 6 ����