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cases may be certified up to the Supreme Court of the United States. In the case of an infringement of a patent, remedy may be had at law in the name of the patentee, grantee or assignee, by an action on the case for damages. Such damages, however, shall not exceed three times the amount of the verdict for the damages actually sustained. Whether or not the injured party may receive vindictive or exemplary damages does not appear to be settled, but it has been held that such may be left to the discretion of the court within the limit of trebling the actual damages found by the jury. As a rule, however, the damages are usually estimated as the profit obtained by the infringer and when there has been a license fee established such is taken for the amount of the damages. In defense of an action the defendant may plead the general issue and after certain notice to the plaintiff may prove at the trial any one of certain special matters provided for by statute. Besides these, however, the defendant may plead specially and offer numerous other matters in defense. The several courts vested with jurisdiction in patent cases have the power of granting injunctions according to the course and principles of courts of equity to prevent the violation of any patent right on such terms as the court may deem reasonable and damages actually sustained by the plaintiff may be recovered in addition to the profits to be accounted for by the defendant. In suits at law the validity, infringement and damages are determined at the same time while in equity the former two are first decided and then the bill is referred to the Master in Chancery for the accounting of profits and assessing of damages.

Having now given such an exposition of our patent system at such length and in such detail as permissible in the character of this writing a few brief observations will be taken in conclusion. A patent system characterizes all progressive nations, except Holland, but its absence in that country may perhaps be explained by the statement of the Dutch legislator that Holland had reached such a degree of perfection as to need no patent system. Our system is generally acknowledged to be the finest in the world and is thought so well of that Germany modelled hers after that of the United States. It is particularly charac

terized by that most valuable institution called the examination in contradiction to that of registration in vogue in England. By this the inventor receives a thorough examination of his patent as to the validity thereof before the grant and to which great respect is attached both by the courts and public. The patent itself is prima facie evidence of validity and the burden of proof is upon all comers. This is not so under the registration system wherein the onus is on the patentee to prove his right in court. In this country however the courts are slow in granting a provisional injunction against an infringer during the pendency of a suit and will do so only in cases where the presumption is in favor of the patentee due to long-established right, res adjudicata and the like. Although the administration of our patent laws is said to sometimes impose great hardship this does not detract from the system, which verges on perfection. It has been remarked by a Justice of the Supreme Court that the law of patents is the metaphysics of law, and here may be mentioned some of the difficulties in the litigation of patent cases. Nearly every case necessitates the determining of the subject of invention, and what is and what is not invention is often a question so complicated and involving such obscure mechanical and scientific facts as to puzzle the logical minds of our Federal judges, for on account of the inability of the court and often the counsel to wander so far into the realm of mechanical and scientific knowledge the expert becomes an important factor in the case. The laws of patents now form a little structure of jurisprudence by themselves between which and the other branches of law lines are so sharply drawn that lawyers in general are reluctant to handle patent cases. The inventors, however, who are usually men unlearned in law and ignorant of their rights are well fostered by a large contingency of the legal profession who have made this specialty their life work.

WALTER A. HOLDEN.

It may interest some of those in active practice to know that the Patent Office at Washington prints for free distribution the following pamphlets: "Patent Laws and Laws relating to the Registration of

Trade Marks and Labels," with annotations.

"Rules of Practice in

the United States Patent Office." "United States Statutes Concerning the Registration of Trade Marks, Prints, and Labels," with the Rules of the Patent Office relating thereto.

Each one in active practice may well send for copies of these three pamphlets. They are well indexed and annotated, and give full instructions with regard to the details of applications for protection of inventions by patent or for registering trade marks, prints, and labels. Every attorney will have questions arise occasionally in regard to one or the other of these important subjects.

Before an attorney is permitted to represent applicants at the United States Patent Office his name must be entered on a register in that office. Rule of Practice 17 provides that the names of persons in the following classes will, upon their written request, be entered upon this register.

"(a) Any person who on June 18, 1897, was engaged as attorney or agent in the active prosecution of applications for patent before this office, or had been so engaged at any time within five years prior thereto and is not disbarred, or is or was during such period a member of a firm so engaged and not disbarred, provided that such person shall, if required, furnish information as to one or more applications for patent so prosecuted by him.

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(b) Any attorney-at-law who is in good standing in any court of record in the United States or any of the States or Territories thereof and shall furnish a certificate of the clerk of such United States, State or Territorial court, duly authenticated under the seal of the court, that he is an attorney in good standing.

"(c) Any person who has been regularly recognized as an attorney or agent to represent claimants before the Department of the Interior or any bureau thereof and is in good standing, provided that such person shall furnish a statement of the date of his admission to practice as such attorney or agent, and shall further show, if required by the Commissioner, that he is possessed of the necessary qualifications to render applicants for patents valuable service and is otherwise competent to advise and assist them in the presentation and prosecution of their applications before the Patent Office.

"(d) Any person not an attorney-at-law who shall file a certificate from a Judge of a United States, State, or Territorial court, duly authenticated under the seal of the court, that such person is of good moral character and of good repute, and possessed of the necessary qualifications to enable him to render applicants for patents valuable service, and is otherwise competent to advise and assist them in the presentation and prosecution of their applications before the Patent Office.

"(e) Any firm which on June 18, 1897, was engaged in the active prosecution as attorneys or agents for applications for patents before

the Patent Office, or had been so engaged at any time within five years prior thereto, provided such firm or member thereof is not disbarred, provided the names of the individuals composing the firm are stated, and provided, also, that such firm shall, if required, furnish information as to one or more applications prosecuted before the Patent Office by them.

"(f) Any firm not entitled to registration under the preceding sections which shall show that the individuals composing the firm are each and all recognized as patent attorneys or agents or are each and all entitled to be so recognized under the preceding sections of this rule. "The Commissioner may demand additional proof of qualifications and reserves the right to decline to recognize any attorney, agent, or other person applying for registration under this rule. Any person or firm not registered and not entitled to be recognized under this rule as an attorney or agent to represent applicants generally may, upon a showing of circumstances which render it necessary or justifiable, be recognized by the Commissioner to prosecute as an attorney or agent certain specified application or applications, but this limited recognition shall not extend further than the application or applications named. No person not registered as above provided will be permitted to prosecute applications before the Patent Office."

A pamphlet containing the names of registered attorneys entitled to practice before the Patent Office will be mailed by the Patent Office to any address for five cents. The Patent Office publishes the "Official Gazette," a weekly journal, which contains all the claims of each patent issued that week as well as a small drawing illustrating the most important feature of such patent. This journal contains the decisions of the official tribunals of the Patent Office with regard to questions of practice, patentability, etc., and the leading decisions of the United States courts in patent and trademark cases. Copies of patent and trademark laws of foreign countries are also published in translation as soon as possible after they have gone into effect. The price of the Official Gazette is ten cents per number or $5.00 a year.

A copy of any United States patent will be sent to any address in this country upon receipt of five cents. No discount is made for quantity except that a whole subclass will be furnished at the rate of three cents a copy and a whole class at the rate of two cents a copy.

Patents are arranged in the Patent Office by classes and subclasses in order that all of them pertaining to a special subject may easily be found. As the patents are now being reclassified the old classification is obsolete and the old list of classes and subclasses has been allowed to go out of print.

All communications should be addressed to the Commissioner of Patents, Washington, D. C. F. v. B.

THE DIVORCE QUESTION; UNIFORMITY IN

LEGISLATION.

BY JOHN LAWRENCE FARRELL,

OF THE NEW YORK BAR.

Prior to the seventeenth century absolute divorces were unknown in England. There were divorces a mensa et thoro, but these were under the control of the ecclesiastical courts. Mr. Bishop, in his work on Marriage, Divorce, and Separation, says that while those courts did not grant decrees of dissolution, yet the head of the Church could and does grant absolute divorces in his discretion. This statement is in direct conflict with the actual facts, as Mr. Bishop would have seen had he gone into the matter thoroughly and frankly, and his further statement that the tenet of indissolubility was first made general by the Council of Trent in 1653, needs the qualification that the tenet had been from the beginning the universally received doctrine of the Church and that the action of the Council was simply a reaffirmation of what had theretofore been the unwritten law,' a mere matter of codification.

The ecclesiastical courts were never brought to this country. They were not adaptable to our conditions. All our divorce laws are, therefore, statutory, and until the enactment of statutes to govern this subject most divorces were granted by the legislatures. In some states, on the assumption that equity had inherent power over this class of cases, divorces were granted by the equity courts. This was due to a misunderstanding of the powers of those courts in England. Even Chancellor Kent held the opinion that jurisdiction of matrimonial causes was originally vested in the temporal courts and that when the ecclesiastical courts ceased to have control of them the jurisdiction naturally reverted to the lay courts where they originally be'Sess. 24, Can. 6.

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