54 mnmmn nmrommz.
` believing that opinion to be incorrect, dismissed the bill. The plain-
tiif appealed to the supreme court, and that court held the decree of
dismissal to be right. It added:
" The counsel for the appellants, however, objects to the decree of dismissal,
because it was made at the argument upon the exceptions to the master’s re-
port, and is contrary to the opinion on the merits, expressed by the court in
its interlocutory order. But this objection cannot be maintained. The case
was at nnal hearing at the argument upon the exceptions, and all of the pre-
vious interlocutory orders in relation to the merits were open for revision
and under the control of the court." .
This court, then, is to interpret the law of reissues as it would have
done it the cases referred to had been decided by the supreme court
before this court made its decision in this case. The rule laid down
by the supreme court is, that where it is sought merely to enlarge a
claim, there must be a clear mistake and inadvertence, and a speedy
application for its correction, with no unreasonable delay; that, in_
such a case, a patentee cannot wait until other inventors have pro-
duced new forms of improvement, and then apply for such an en-
largement of his claim as to make it embrace those new forms; and
that when it is apparent, from a comparison of the two patents, that
the reissue is made to enlarge the scope of the patent, the court may
decide whether the delay was unreasonable, and the reissue, there-
fore, void. This view has been repeatedly asserted and applied by
the supreme court in numerous cases decided since those in 104 U. S.
As to the Pipo reissue, No. 6,565, it is plain that the right to reis-
sue was lost by the delay of more than 12 years, because the case is
one of a mere expansion of the claims, beyond anything stated in the
original patent as the invention, and with no proof of mistake or inad-
vertence, and it is sought to make the new claims embrace, in this
case, structures brought into use between the time of the issue of the
original patent and the time of the application for the reissue, and
which were not infringements of the claim of the original patent.
There was but one claim in the original. There are 13 in the reissue.
It would serve no useful purpose to enlarge on this subject as to No.
6,565, for the counsel for the plaintiff concedes that, under the re-
iterated decisions of the supreme court, this court mustdismiss the
bill as to that reissue.
But in regard to the Robjohn reissue, No. 6,566, the plaintid con-
tends that the case is diiierent; that claim 2 of the original patent
covered the defendant’s structures; that claims 8 and 9 of the reissue
` are substantially only repetitions of claim 2 of the original; or that,
at least, claim 2 of the original was so worded as to _be ambiguous,
and so inoperative, and claims 8 and 9 of the reissue are valid, as
removing the ambiguity. The specidcations of the original and reis-
sued patents; are as follows, the parts in each which are not found in
the other being in italics: V