42 rmnmmrn iznroarss.
These facts being brought to the attention of congress, an act was
passed, approved June 14, 1878, for the relief of Graham’s heirs.
By that act the heirs of Graham were relieved from all disabilities
preventing them from renewing or reviving an application by his ad-
ministrator for a patent for a novel method of extinguishing fires.
The administrator was authorized to renew the application, conform-
ing it to present rules, and the commissioner of patents was author-
ized to issue letters patent for the invention or inventions set forth in
the application, to have the same force and effect from its date as
though no delay had occurred; provided, that all persons having ma-
chines, containing the inventions,`in use should have the right to
continue to use them without being liable for any infringement. Un-
' der the authority given by this act the patent on which this suit is
based was issued, founded upon the original application of Graham,
Bled November 23, 1837. V
· It is contended by the respondents that this patent is void because
congress had no constitutional power to pass the act; that as, by the
general acts of congress on the subject of patents in force during the
time between the filing of the original application andthe passing of the
special act, the applications of Graham and his administrator were de·
clared abandoned, and all right to prosecute them was denied, it re-
sulted that the public had acquired the right to use the inventions, and
that right could not be takenaway without the law being repugnant to
the declarationof the constitution that no person shall be deprived of ·
his property without due process of law. The theory of the encourage-
ment given to inventors is that by disclosing under the regulations of
law their discoveries they benefit the public, and the constitutional
power of congress for securing to them the exclusive right to their in-
ventions has only one restriction, viz., that it shall be for limited
times. With regard to the terms upon whichthe exclusive right shall
` be granted, the time when the application for the original grant or
for any renewal or extension of it shall be made, it has been fre-
° quently held that the regulations in these matters are merely self-
imposed restrictions on the constitutional power of congress, which it
can at its pleasure disregard in any particular case. Walker, Pat. §
255.
Special acts for the relief of particular inventors have often been
, passed by congress. Evans v. Eaton, 3 Wheat. 454. In the case of
Aynwam Co. v. Jordan, 7 Wall. 583, the supreme court sustained a
patent whichhad been extended in pursuance of a special act of con-
. gross, passed more than 20 years after the original patent had ex-
pired, and the•invention had been free to the public. The act of con-
gress in that case was quite similar to the one under consideration,
in that it authorized the commissioner to entertain the application
for extension as though it had been made within the time prescribed
by the general law. In Blanchard v. Sprague, 2 Story, 170, Mr. Jus-
tice Sromz, speaking of the right of congress to grant a patent to an