Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/865

GREENWOOD V. BEACHER. 8o7 �ing affidavits, that on or about the twenty-ninth of Janiiary, 1879, one John Bigelow made application to the commis- sioner of patents for letters patent for certain improvements in sweat-leathers for hats and caps, and that the patent was refused, because the subject-matter had already been incor- porated in two several letters patent granted to Thomas W. Bracher, the defendant in this suit — one dated July 23, 1878, and numbered 206,296, and the other dated December 3, 1878, and numbered 210,489; that af terwards, to-wit, on the eighteenth of February, 1879, the commissioner declared an interference between the parties in order to determine the question of priority of invention, — ^the subject-matter involved in the interference being the claim of the first recited Bracher patent and the first claim of the Bigelow application, and the claim of the second recited Bracher patent and the second claim of the said Bigelow application, — the claims respect- ively being identical; that the usual proceedings were had thereon, and after testimony and argument the examiner of interferences rendered his opinion on the sixth of June fol- lowing, awarding the priority .to Bigelow; that no appeal being taken iherefrom, letters patent for the invention were issued to Bigelow on the fifth of August, 1879, and numbered 318,220, and that subsequently Bigelow assigned the same to the complainant as trustee of the Blanchard Overseam Machine Company, of Philadelphia. �The bill of complaint alleges that notwithstanding such inter- ference and adjudication of priority of invention to Bigelow, and Buch conclusion of the right of the parties by the proper oiScer of the government, the defendant still asserts that his letters patent are valid, as against the complainant, and that he ia making, using and vending patented improvements, or sweat- leathers, substantially the same in construction and operation as are mentioned and described in the said letters patent of the complainant. �If the only question in the case was the priority of the invention, as betweeu these parties, I should not hesitate to grant the injunctiou forthwith to the complainant. The decree of the patent office on the interference doubtless con- ��� �