Source: https://openjurist.org/262/us/209
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 00:08:56+00:00

Document:
ROBERTSON, Commissioner of Patents, et al.
Mr. Geo. L. Wilkinson, of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
Mr. Nathan Heard, of Boston, Mass., for certain appellees.
This is a direct appeal under section 238 of the Judicial Code (Comp. St. § 1215) from a decree of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Illinois dismissing a bill in equity. The District Judge certifies that the motion to dismiss the bill was sustained solely for lack of jurisdiction.
The bill was filed by the appellant, the American Steel Foundries, against the Commissioner of Patents to secure an adjudication that the appellant is entitled to have its trade-mark 'Simplex' registered and authorizing the Commissioner of Patents to register the same. The Commissioner appeared as defendant and by stipulation the Simplex Electric Heating Company was allowed to intervene as the real party in interest. The bill averred that the American Steel Foundries had duly filed an application in the Patent Office for the registration, that the Examiner of Trade-Marks had refused the application, that the Commissioner of Patents had affirmed this refusal, and that on appeal the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia had affirmed the action of the Commissioner, that a petition for certiorari had been filed in this court and granted, and that thereafter the cause was dismissed by this court for lack of jurisdiction, on the ground that the decree of the Court of Appeals was not a final one.
The appellant then filed this bill under section 9 of the Trade-Mark Act of February 20, 1905 (33 Stat. 724, c. 592 [Comp. St. § 9494]), and section 4915, Revised Statutes (Comp. St. § 9460). The intervener based its motion to dismiss on the lack of jurisdiction 'over the subject-matter or alleged cause of action,' and the motion was granted without opinion.
The question in this case is whether the closing words of section 9, 'and the same rules of practice and procedure shall govern in every stage of such proceedings, as far as the same may be applicable,' are broad enough in their scope to include 'the remedy by bill in equity' granted to unsuccessful applicants for a patent in section 4915.
This language is quoted with approval in the opinion of this court in Baldwin Co. v. Howard Co., 256 U. S. 35, 41 Sup. Ct. 405, 65 L. Ed. 816, in which it was held that there could be no review in this court, by appeal or certiorari, of a decision of the District Court of Appeals in respect to the registration of a trade-mark under section 9 of the Trade-Mark Act.
It is pressed upon us, however, that this language in Atkins v. Moore and in Baldwin Co. v. Howard Co. was not necessary to the conclusion in those cases and is to be regarded as obiter dictum. It was used in arguendo and was the unanimous expression of the court in both cases. It may be that the conclusion that the decision of the Court of Appeals was not final and appealable to this court could have been reached without this argument; but, however this may be, the construction put by the court on section 9 is most persuasive and follows so clearly from the decision in Gandy v. Marble, that we find no reason to question its correctness.
An argument has been made to us against giving such an effect to section 9 based on the intrinsic differences between the nature of the patent right, and that in a trade-mark. We do not regard such differences as important in interpreting section 9 when it is obvious from that section and the whole of the Trade-Mark Act that Congress intended to produce a parallelism in the mode of securing these two kinds of government monopoly from the Patent Office.
The decree of the District Court is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings.

References: § 1215
 § 9494
 § 9460
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