The republic. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1849-1853, 1853-02-03
.wAsHIaeroN. rHvRspA1 Moasise| 1853

years before the patentit Is said the teeth OF tn
i sickles were made coarser than they had been
and all cut in one direction as they were. &C.. tn
machine choked, especially IN damp toheGt. Ther
is no machine at this time that will cut clear i
damp tcheat without my improvements in sab
stances (see the failure of Husseyss in damp whoa
in late English reports) and still it s not said her
that no reversed cut sickle had been used before
far from it.. Nor can it be supposed that petito,
| of this sort Cat the time it was drawn) would b.
/ drawn with particular accuracy upon points no
essential to it's object. All the Improvement
combined and claimed in the patent of l646 wer'
necessary to complete the cutting apparatus, ant
had my patent, and they were not abandoned
while in course of experimenting, and IT was no
necessary in that petition to state at what date any
one OF the improvements was first made
| Ash have stated, and as is seen, much expert
mentlng was necessary in the limited time afforded
for it to complete delicate an operation, and q
repeat that) the reversed cut sickle was first in
vented and used by me in my machine prior tt
the daterfrom which it is claimed BY Moore & Has
call. s.a
But in the course of the discussion of Moore s
HascalP bill in the Senate, it stated that il
had been reported and passed by the House, when
it was passed, however, without being read to it,
and evidently without being understood at the
time by the House, the committee that reported IT,
Tor while II Is obviously designed to relieve from
| abandonment or dedication to the publican not tc
another dndUtdu0l, soho cannot appropriate to him
self the invention of another--any thing that can
be proved to have been in the burnt model (what
fcations, explained, and therefore extends to
an indefinite period behind their pGtent it also
lieves from abandonment improvements prov
ed at any time subsequent to the date of the pa
tent; and yet, in a subsequent report of the
same committee, in the case of Woodwork, the
ground is clearly taken, that whatever has been
dedicated to the public cannot be recalled, which
it is said would be "monopoly,'' &C. And
the object and effect of the bill seemed equally
misunderstood by its advocates in the Senate Sena
tors Badger & Cass having both argued that it
would interfere with existing laws, and there's
fore amounted to no more, in principle and effect,
than renewal If the patent (the former, how
ever, seemed more to consider the effect of pro-
posed amendment than the character of the bill
itself. having thought ssif good with, it would be
good without the amendment;'') and the only
reason assigned for making the application to
Congress instead of the Patent Office by
General Cass who stated that sst might be, in
some part, bis fault' that the application was
made to Congress, because extension of four
teenyeGrs could be obtained by Congress- instead
of seven years by the Patent Office. General Cass
did not explain, however, why the patent for the
Improvements was not applied for at the Patent
Office, if no unpatentable improvements were
meant to be claimed; for TO them has reasons would
not apply. 1t could not have occurred to him that
there was any difference, if, indeed, he aware
at that time that patent for the improvements
was to be included in the patent to be extended
My machine and my patents have, not without
long and laborious application on my part, been
prominently before the, country for many years,
and are of acknowledged value and importance to
the country; while on the contrary, the patent OF
Moore & Hascali has not been record in the Pa
tent Office since the year it granted, required
by law and there aras therefore notice to the pub
nc that they had patent at all; and the single fact
that but five six of their machines have been
built, and that they are not known out of their
neighborhood, while they are contesting claims
rather cIaim-with me, dated by them in
1885, is sufficient evidence that their machine
Is OF no practical ralue. ask then what round
tnere Is for party, under such circumstances,
connecting themselves with other infringing parties
as In this case--or without any such connexion-
after lapse of seventeen years, to present them.
selves to Congress and modestly request that they
be relieved from abandonment, and patent be
granted to them for little in sickle,
which they omitted to include in their patent, (of
loS6,) and which has for ten or fifteen years been
IN general use, under dnothers patent tcitbout OBJ
Jectton-without, / say, even placing the party
having the patent upon equal ground in sustaining
has patent gainst the hydraheaded concern he has
to contend with, on the equitable principle claimed
OF "priority of inyention.'' But have not stated
this application just in the manner ia which it is
made. Whilst have stated its object and effect,
Its form upon its face is such that as has been
shown, some of its friends and advocates in both
houses of Congress have not so understood it. In
stead OF stating aohat it was designed to patent,
der 1t, when its polish of apparent simple justice
Is such as to screen its real character from the
scrutiny of such minds as Senators Cass and Bad
ger, and the House Committee on Patents, it is in
intely than if it had clearly borne upon its
lace Its true character and purpose.
tttho could have supposed, further, that under
this bill, without having taken the first step, dur
ing the period OF sixteen seventeen years. to
tabish right by patent, according to the forms
prescribed by law, (for what Seymour & Morgan
say improved the cutting apparatus in all the reap
ing machines in Belps,a Hussey's, and all!)
or without having given notice or intimation of a
claim at all, 1t was designed to obtain patent for
an Improvement" proved TO have been in the
5bl,rp oil do 1otsxr~
patent and (ret-ospectivey) make the patentee
liable for the manufacture ofperhaps thousands of
-reaping NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. from 1886 or 1850,
(date OF the patent, or its expiEationO lam not
myself quite certain Such is it's design lsay and
that it wasprobably calculated, would have sustained
Seymour 8, Morganin heir continued Infringement
of my patents Would Congress knowingly
undertake to settle rights of such character and
magnitude thus summarily, informally and unin
teligibIy-not to say uniatufuIty and unjsistly?
How many members of the House who voted for
this bill understood the provisions and conse-
quences involved in it Or, rather, may not re-
Congress iro tOould haze uoted this bill acith full
knowledge of its concealed character and designs?
ask, further, if after the passage of such bill by
Congress, without having been understood read,
the consequences described should be visited upon
some party where least looked for, whether the
fret business done at the following session of Con-
gress would notbe to repeal the odious act and pro-
vide such other remedies as the case would adj
NIT off,? Is teea 5ZsQ Il
Although, at the frat glance, it reads as if writ
ten by plain, unsophisticated farmer; the Iapyer
who prepared that bill for Moore e Hascau, and
submitted it to the Committee ON Patents-he
knetD what they aoa,lted and he knew well how to
obtain it, Should call him a smart ga.pyer, at all
events. This is my judgment, and have now
shown whatI know of the M. s. Fl. bill. confess
that its Retrospective feature had, some measure
escaped my notice, until excepted to by Senator
Bayard in the discussion of the bill in the Senate
while had confined myself to endeayoring, in
any way that might meet the judgment of the Sc
nate, to effect an amendment that would place me
on equal priority ground with Moore & Hascall--
as will be seen by the amendment proposed to
them and at the same time relieve me from preju-
dice that might have been created by their repre-
sensations as TO priority. And other interests, as
well as mine, might OF course be affected and NAV
be aimed at. With its unlimited sweep, it is im-
possible for any one man to conceive at what inter-
est in s.haryestng machines'' its (poisonous) shaft
might not be levelled. Relieved from abandon
ment, to prove priority, through the model Without
oath 10 the inuentiofs. 1t is just equivalent to
placing all in the power of the parties reieued:
for it might be even easier to proue thing had
been in a model not in existence than to swear to
ii! Does any one thinkths an impossible case? /
can, from my own observation, furnish, in nv
Judgment, more daring one. know of an an
peaIed case from the Patent Office, in which an as
signee, after being beaten in the evidence immedi
ately made new application and had a new in
reference declared in the of another nor
whose right whatever it was) in the thing he nos
,aasod dor nerfecflv ,xhev fho