Case ID: f-cas_13/html/0349-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "CRANCH, Chief Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Case No. 7,209.
    In re JANNEY.
    [1 MacA. Pat. Cas. 86;
    Cranch, Pat. Dec. 143.]
    Circuit Court, District of Columbia.
    Dec. 13, 1847.
    J. J. Greenough, for appellant.
    W. P. N. Fitzgerald, for commissioner.
   CRANCH, Chief Judge.

The last application for a patent was made on the 27th of October, ÍS47. some small amendment having been made in the specification not affecting the merits of the claim, so that it was, in effect, an application to the present commissioner to revise and revoke the two decisions made by Mr. Ellsworth, the former commissioner. His refusal so to revise and revoke these decisions is not a ground of appeal under the acts of 1836 and 1839. The act of 1839 gives the right of appeal to the judge only in cases where an appeal was by the previous act allowed from the decision of the commissioner to a board of examiners, and then only when a patent was refused. In the present case he has not refused a patent. He decides only that he will not examine the merits of the. claim, which has been twice rejected after a full examination by his predecessor in office. This refusal was not a ground for appeal to examiners under the seventh section of the act of 1836, and therefore is not a ground of appeal to the judge.

Having no jurisdiction of such an appeal, it is not for me to say whether the refusal under the circumstances of the case was right or wrong. There is no limit of time as to the appeal, and I do not perceive any reason why Mr. Janney may not now appeal from the decision of Mr. Ellsworth, and have the merits -of his invention decided. I understand the merits of both applications are alike. Having no jurisdiction of this appeal, I suppose it must be considered as dismissed.-