The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-05
MANY PATIENTS
ARE INVOLVED.
IMPORTANT DECISION RENDERED
BY THE SUPREME COURT IN
THE BATE CASE
AS TO FOREIGN INVENTIONS.
THOSE IN THIS COUNTRY, PARTICU-
LARLY EDIsoN's, WILL Soon
BE UNPROTECTED.

WASHINGTON, March 4.-The case of the
Bate Refrigerator Company against Fran
els Sultzberger & Co., upon which hinges
the question whether American patents ex-
pire with foreign patents previously issued,
was decided to-day in an exhaustive opin-
ion by Justice Harlan. The court held
that the invention for which Bate received
patent was previously patented in for
eign country and the United States patent
expired with the foreign patents. Electric
and other'patents are involved by the deci-
sion in this suit.
The case involves the construction of sec
ton 1887 of the Revised Statutes. which
provides that every patent granted for an
invention which has been previously pat
ented in foreign country shall be SO linn
tied as to expire at the same time as the
foreign patent, or if there be more than
one, at the same time with the one having
the shortest term, and in no case shall it
be in force more than seventeen years"
Among the patents affected are three is
sued to the Western Union Telegraph Com
pany on applications filed by Thomas A.
Edison, as follows: Patent No. AZ, go, ap-
plcation filed April 81, 1877; Nos. 474, 231
and 474 232, application filed July q, 1877.
On March Z, 1893, patent 492, 789 was is
sued to the same party on an application
filed by the same party on September 5,
1877. These inventions became the prop
erty of the American Bell Telephone Com
pany by the telephone consolidation con-
tract, November /, 1879. These Edison
patents are claimed to be fundamental, and
with the Berliner patent now in litigation,
and which were filed in the Patent Office
from 1877 to November, 1891, expire at the
date of the expiration of the foreign pat
ents. The inventions have been in use
since 1878. The Edison inventions were
patented in England, France and Canada
in 1877 and in Belgium, Austria Hungary
Italy, Germany and Spain in 1873, and in
Prussia in 1882. They are free in foreign
countries, and under the construction now
given to section 1887 are made free in this
country. Substantially the decision will
affect in the same way the quadruplex tele-
graph patents which were applied for in
October, 1874, and issued December Is,
1885. The Misunderstanding patents filed
by the General Electric Light Company
are included in those which will be affected
by the decision. The decision says:
Was the Bate invention patented abroad
before it was patented in this country? If so
the American patent expired with the foreign
patent and thereby the American public be-
come entitled to the use of the invention from
the time the foreign public was permitted to
use it. Congress, in effect by the existing laws,
says to an inventor seeking to enjoy the exclu-
sive use in the country OF his invention for the
term prescribed by law: "If your invention has
not been introduced into public use in the
United States for more than two years you
may, on complying with the conditions
prescribed, obtain an American patent and
you may, if you can, obtain foreign patents.
But the American patent will be granted on the
condition that If you obtain the foreign patent
first your invention shall be free to the Ameri-
can people whenever, by reason of the expira-
ton OF the foreign patent, it becomes free to
people abroad; but in no case shall the term of
the American patent exceed seventeen years. 8"
The rule prescribed by the twenty-fifth Sec
ton of the act of 1870 having been reproduced
in section 1887 of the Revised Statutes and the
latter section never having been amended we
ought not after the lapse of nearly twenty-five
years from the passage of the act OF 1870 place
on its twenty-fifth section or on section 1887 of
the Revised Statutes, which took its place any
Interpretation other than which the ordinary
natural meaning of their words import. Our
answers, therefore, on the questions certified
are that the inventions for which United
States patents to Bate were issued were under
the facts stated previously patented in a
foreign country" within the meaning of those
words in section 1887 of the Revised Statutes,
and that the United States patent to him ex-
pired under terms OF that section before the
expiration of seventeen years from its date
Let it be SO certified to the Circuit Court OF