and to give them the first information respecting his invention, and the earliest opportunity of using it, the law makes no distinction between him and the foreign inventor who obtains his first patent at home." Com. Dec. (1870) pp. 130, 131.

In the Case of Smith and Skinner, decided October 26, 1870, the commissioner said: "In the cases of Ward and Boyer I held that the grant of a foreign patent before the issue of an American patent was fatal to the application for the extension of the American patent if the foreign patent expired before the original term of the patent sought to be extended. It is immaterial whether the American patent was applied for before the foreign patent or not. This was important under the first laws, but no such distinction exists under the act of 1870. This invention was patented in England, France, and Belgium on October 17, 1856, prior to the grant of the American patent, and the English patent had already expired. This point is fatal to the present application." Com. Dec. (1870) p. 131.

We have not been referred to any ruling of the patent office, after the passage of the act of 1870, in conflict with or different from that of Commissioner Fisher, except one made by Commissioner Paine in 1880. But in reference to the latter ruling, and the construction of the act of 1870, under which the commissioner of patents had uniformly proceeded, Commissioner Marble, in a letter to the secretary of the interior, under date of March 17, 1882, said: "As will be seen by Col. Mason's communication, the construction now put upon the statute is the construction which It has received since it was enacted, except during a short interval of the term of my predecessor, Mr. Commissioner Paine. I may state, however, that Mr. Commissioner Paine | addressed to me a letter within one month after he had retired from office, stating that he believed his construction of section 4887 was erroneous."

It is appropriate now to inquire as to the❘ course of judicial decision upon the question before this court.

That question was directly presented in Refrigerating Co. v. Gillett, 13 Fed. 553, 555, which case related to the patent here involved. Bate's application in Canada having been made after his application in this country, and the Canadian patent having been issued before the American patent was issued, the principal question was whether the invention was patented in Canada previous to the issuing of the patent in the United States, in the sense in which the words "previously patented" were used in section 4887 of the Revised Statutes.

Referring to that section, Judge Nixon said: "The phraseology here used materially differs from the previous legislation on the subject. The power of the commissioner of patents is defined and abridged. Where a foreign patent has been granted for the same subjectmatter, he is expressly required to limit the

term of the domestic patent to the period of time that the foreign patent has to run; or,* if there be more than one, then to make it expire at the same time with the one having the shortest term. We do not see how any language could have been employed that would more clearly express the legislative design that the life of the domestic patent should expire with the term of any outstanding foreign patent. But the counsel for the complainant contended on the argument that the present case did not fall within the limitation of the statute, because the application for the United States patent was filed antecedent to the application for or the grant of the Canadian patent. We are at a loss to understand what the time of filing the application for the patent has to do with the matter. It is true that the eighth section of the act of 1836 and the sixth section of the act of 1839 made the date of filing the specifications and drawings in the one case and the date of the application of the home patent in the other the point of time from which to reckon the six months intervening between the issue of the foreign and domestic patent. It is also true that by section 4886 and the first clause of section 4887, of the Revised Statutes an inventor is required to file an application for his patent within two years after his invention or discovery has been in public use or on sale, from all of which the late commissioner of patents (Paine) was led to the opinion that the word 'previously,' used in the last clause of section 4887, had reference to the time prior to the filing of the application, rather than to the time prior to the granting of the patent. See 17 O. G. 330. But this seems to be wresting the language of the section from its plain and obvious meaning, and we are not able to follow the reasoning by which such an interpretation is reached."

This decision was followed in Gramme Electrical Co. v. Arnoux, etc., Electric Co. (1883) 17 Fed. 838, 840, which turned upon the construction of section 25 of the act of 1870. One of the questions in that case was whether an American patent, dated October 17, 1871, and the application for which was made August 17, 1870, was limited, as to its term, by the term of an Austrian patent issued after the American application was made, but before the American patent was! issued. Mr. Justice Blatchford, referring to section 25 of the act of 1870, said: "It is contended that under the foregoing provisions [patent] No. 120,057 expired either on December 30, 1871, or on December 30, 1880, the date of the expiration of the Austrian patent, accordingly as that patent is to be regarded as a patent for one year or for ten years. To this the plaintiff replies that the application for No. 120,057 was filed before the application for the Austrian patent was filed. But the date of the application for No. 120,057 cannot affect the question. Under the act of 1870 a patent takes effect from

the time when it is granted, and cannot be antedated. The meaning of section 25 of the act of 1870 is that the United States patent shall expire at the same time with the foreign patent having the shortest time to run, which was granted before the United States patent was granted, and not that it shall expire at the same time with the foreign patent having the shortest time to run, which was granted before the time when the application for the United States patent was made. Refrigerating Co. v. Gillett, 13 Fed. 553."

There is nothing in the opinion delivered by Mr. Justice Blatchford which, in our judgment, justifies the suggestion that he felt constrained by principles of comity to follow the decision of Judge Nixon without considering the question upon its merits. He seems to have expressed his mature judgment as to the scope and meaning of the act of 1870. The case of Refrigerating Co. v. Gillett came before Mr. Justice Bradley at the circuit in 1887, and what he said is reported in 31 Fed. 809. Referring to the construction given by Judge Nixon to section 4887, he observed that, if the question were an open one, he would have some hesitation, as it was one of considerable doubt. Expressly stating that he had not come to any decided conclusion on the subject, he declined, while sitting at the circuit, to modify the decision of Judge Nixon, and gave to it full effect. This court would undoubtedly attach great value to the deliberate judgment of Mr. Justice Bradley upon the question now before it,indeed, upon any question.

In Edison Electric Light Co. v. U. S. Electric Lighting Co. (1888) 35 Fed. 134, 137, 138, the subject was carefully considered by Judge Wallace. In that case, which was a suit for the infringement of a patent, he said, after quoting section 4887: "The real inquiry is whether the section limits the term of a domestic patent to the term of a foreign patent when the application for the foreign patent is not made until subsequent to the application in this country, but the foreign patent issues before the domestic patent. If it were proper to treat this question as an original one, it would be necessary first to inquire whether there is any ambiguity in the language of the statute. If there is not, the duty of the court is to give effect to its obvious meaning, notwithstanding it may be thought to make an unreasonable and harsh innovation upon the pre-existing privileges of our own inventors. It is not only the safer course to adhere to the words of a statute, construed in their ordinary import, instead of entering into any inquiry as to the supposed intention of congress, but it is the imperative duty of the court to do so. Where the meaning of the Revised Statutes is plain, the court cannot look to the sources of the revision to ascertain whether errors have or have not been committed by the revisers. U. S. v. Bowen, 100 U. S. 508. There is no practical differ

ence in the phraseology of section 4887 and that of section 25 of the act of July 8, 1870, from which the section is reproduced." Referring to the above cases at the circuit, he remarked that the question should not be considered as an original one.

In Refrigerating Co. v. Hammond, 35 Fed. 151, Judge Colt followed the decision in Refrigerating Co. v. Gillett. And a like ruling was made by Judge Coxe in Accumulator Co. V. Julien Electrical Co., 57 Fed. 605.

In view of this history of the question presented by the certificate of the circuit court of appeals, what is the duty of this court? In Andrews v. Hovey, 124 U. S. 694, 717, 8 Sup. Ct. 676, it was said that the construction of a statute of the United States concerning patents for inventions cannot be regarded as judicially settled when it has not been so settled by the highest judicial authority which can pass judgment upon the question. "Nor," the court further said, "is this a case for the application of the doctrine that, in cases of ambiguity, the practice adopted by an executive department of the government in interpreting and administering a statute is to be taken as some evidence of its proper construction. The question before us as to the validity of a patent by reason of pre-existing acts or omissions of the inventor, of the character of those involved in the present case, is not a question of executive administration, but is properly a judicial question. Although it may be a question which, to some extent, may come under the cognizance of the commissioner of patents in granting a patent, yet, like all the questions passed upon by him in granting a patent which are similar in character to the question here involved, his determination thereof, in granting a particular patent, has never been looked upon as concluding the determination of the courts in regard to those questions respecting such particular patent, and, a fortiori, respecting other patents." The appellant, therefore, properly insists that the determination of the present question shall not be deemed absolutely concluded either by the practice that has obtained in the patent office since the passage of the act of 1870 nor by decisions in the inferior courts of the United States.

If section 4887 of the Revised Statutes is so worded as to express clearly the intention of congress, the court must give effect to that intention. But, even if the statute be not so explicit as to preclude construction if, upon applying to it the established rules of interpretation, if looking at it in the light of previous legislation on the subject, if there be reasonable ground for adopting either one of two constructions, this court, without depart ing from sound principle, may well adopt that construction which is in harmony with the settled practice of the executive branch of the government, and with the course of judicial decisions in the circuit courts of the United States, especially if there be reason to suppose that vast interests may have grown

up under that practice and under judicial decisions, which may be disturbed or destroyed by the announcement of a different rule. *Looking at the words of the statutes referred to, neither unduly enlarging nor unduly restricting their meaning, we are of opinion that congress intended by the twentyfifth section of the act of 1870, preserved in section 4887 of the Revised Statutes, to introduce a new test in respect of the term of an American patent where the same invention was the subject of a foreign patent previously Issued. It has already been observed that the statutes relating to patents show upon their face that congress always had in mind the difference between an application for a patent and the patent itself. And that difference is apparent in the act of 1870. We find there the words "application," "patent," "patented," "first patented," and "caused to be patented."

The inventor whom the act of 1839 was designed to protect was one whose invention had not been introduced into public and common use in the United States prior to his application for an American patent, and which had been "patented in a foreign country more than six months prior to his application." In reference to an American patent, granted under those circumstances, that act expressly declared that it should be limited to 14 years, -not, let it be observed, from the date of the American patent, but from the date or publication of the foreign letters patent.

The act of 1870 provided for the case of an inventor whose invention had not been introduced into public use in the United States for more than two years prior to his application, but which had been "first patented or caused to be patented in a foreign country." In such a case, that statute expressly provided that the American patent should expire with the foreign patent having the shortest term to run.

The case provided for by section 4887 of the Revised Statutes is the same as that provided for by the twenty-fifth section of the act of 1870, and the words, "first patented, or caused to be patented, in a foreign country," in the first clause of that section, are emphasized by the words in the succeeding clause, "previously patented" in a foreign country.

We cannot superadd, in section 4887 of the Revised Statutes, the words "prior to the application," either after the words, "first patented, or caused to be patented, in a foreign country," or after the words, "previously patented in a foreign country," without defeating the intention of congress as manifested by the language it selected to indicate its purpose. And the express command of the existing statute is that every American patent for an Invention "previously patented in a foreign country"-that is, "first patented, or caused to be patented, in a foreign country"-shall expire at the same time with the foreign patent. No words are used that will justify the court in holding that an invention patented in

a foreign country before being patented here is to be exempt from the operation of the provision limiting the term of the American patent to expire with the foreign patent.

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 became entitled to use the invention from the time the foreign public were permitted to use it. Congress, in effect, by the existing law, says to an inventor seeking to enjoy the exclusive use in this country of his invention for the full 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, upon complying with the conditions prescribed, obtain an American patent, and you may, if you can, obtain a foreign patent. 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 American people whenever, by reason of the expiration of the foreign patent, it becomes free to people abroad; but in no case shall the term of the American patent exceed seventeen years." This we deem to be a sound interpretation of the statute, giving to the words used the meaning required by their ordinary signification.

In our judgment, the language used is so plain and unambiguous that a refusal to recognize its natural, obvious meaning would be justly regarded as indicating a purpose to change the law by judicial action based? upon some supposed policy of congress. But, as declared in Hadden v. Collector, 5 Wall. 107, 111: "What is termed the policy of the, government with reference to any particular legislation is generally a very uncertain thing, upon which all sorts of opinions, each variant from the other, may be formed by different persons. It is a ground much too unstable upon which to rest the judgment of the court in the interpretation of statutes." "Where the language of the act is explicit," this court has said, "there is great danger in departing from the words used, to give an effect to the law which may be supposed to have been designed by the legislature. * It is not for the court

to say, where the language of the statute is clear, that it shall be so construed as to embrace cases because no good reason can be assigned why they were excluded from its provisions." Denn v. Reid, 10 Pet. 524, 527.

Undoubtedly the court, when endeavoring to ascertain the intention of the legislature may be justified, in some circumstances, in giving weight to considerations of injustice or inconvenience that may arise from a particular construction of a statute. Wilson v. Rousseau, 4 How. 646, 6S0; Bloomer v. Me Quewan, 14 How. 539, 553; Blake v. Bank, 23 Wall. 307, 320; U. S. v. Kirby, 7 Wall. 482, 486. It is therefore said that the time ordinarily intervening in other countries be

tween the filing of an application and the granting of a patent is very short in comparison with the time ordinarily consumed in this country in obtaining a patent after the inventor has filed his application in the patent office, and, consequently, the statute -if construed as we have indicated its words reasonably require might operate to the injury of an American inventor in that he will be deprived of so much of the statutory term of his Amarican patent as will be in excess of the term of any foreign patent previously obtained for the same invention. If the statute thus construed does not give to the inventor all the benefits he would like to have, the remedy is with another department of the government, and it is not for the courts to tamper with the words of a statute, or, by a strained construction of legislative enactments, the language which is clear and explicit, to accomplish results not contemplated by congress. This court, speaking by Chief Justice Marshall, in U. S. v. Fisher, 2 Cranch, 358, 385, said that, where the meaning of the legislature was plain, "it must be obeyed."

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Besides, the principle that limits an AmerIcan patent to expire with a previous foreign patent covering the same invention was not first introduced by the act of 1870. It appears in the act of 1839; for it is there expressly declared that the American patent which the inventor shall not be debarred from receiving by reason of the invention having been patented in a foreign country more than six months prior to his application in this country "shall be limited to fourteen years from the date of publication of such foreign letters patent." While that act was in force, the term prescribed for an American patent was 14 years. And yet, according to its provisions, that time-if the inventor had a foreign patent antedating his American application by more than six months-was to be computed, not from the date of the American patent, but from the date or publication of the foreign patent. That principle is preserved in the existing law, for under the Revised Statutes, as under the act of 1870, if there be an American patent for an invention previously patented abroad, the former expires, not, it is true, at the expiration of any given number of years, as under the act of 1839, but at the time the foreign patent expires.

It is also said that the United States promised the inventor, when making his application, to give him a patent for the full term of 17 years from the date of his patent, if, upon examination, it was found that he was entitled to one at the time of such application; and, consequently, that a curtailment of that term by reason of something occurring after the filing of the application, and for which he may not be responsible, is Inconsistent with good faith upon the part of the government. Of course, this court would hesitate to accept any construction of an act

of congress that would imply bad faith upon the part of the government. But the contention just referred to assumes the very matter in dispute. It assumes that the prom-" ise to the inventor was not accompanied by conditions authorizing the government to limit the term of its patent to some period less than 17 years from its date. But if the promise to issue a patent is made with the reservation in the statute containing the promise that the patent, when issued, shall be limited to expire with any foreign patent previously issued for the same invention, then there is no basis for the suggestion that the enforcement of that condition violates any promise made to the inventor.

Another suggestion in behalf of the plaintiff is that in the case of a revision of statutes neither changes of phraseology nor a different arrangement of clauses in themselves show an intention to change or alter the existing law; that the new law should be held to mean what the prior law meant, unless a purpose to change or alter is manifested by clear, unambiguous language; and that, in the interpretation of any particular part of a revision, resort may be had to the previous law on the subject, whenever the revisers have not, in explicit language, disclosed their meaning. The circumstances under which the courts may look at prior laws for which a revision has been substituted are stated in U. S. v. Bowen, 100 U. S. 50S, 513. That case depended upon the construction to be placed upon certain sections of the Revised Statutes. Mr. Justice Miller, speaking for the court, said: "The Revised Statutes must be treated as the legislative declaration of the statute law on the subjects which they embrace on the 1st day of December, 1873. When the meaning is plain, the courts cannot look to the statutes which have been revised to see if congress erred in that revision, but may do so when necessary to construe doubtful language used in expressing the meaning of congress." This principle was reaffirmed in Vietor v. Arthur, 104 U. S. 498; Deffeback v. Hawke, 115 U. S. 392, 402, 6 Sup. Ct. 95; Iron Co. v. Ashburn, 118 U. S. 54, 57, 6 Sup. Ct. 929; U. S. v. Lacher, 134 U. S. 624, 627, 10 Sup. Ct. 625. For the reasons already stated, the principle announced in the cases just cited cannot avail the plaintiff if the existing statute is interpreted to mean what its words import according to their natural sig nification; for, the words used in* section 4887 of the Revised Statutes, as well as those in section 25 of the act of 1870, clearly evince the purpose of congress to so curtail the term of an American patent (where the same invention is previously patented abroad) that it will expire at the time the foreign patent expires, even if the latter was applied for and granted after the filing of the American application, but before the American patent issues.

But it is confidently asserted that the pro