No. 199.] 391 



To correct it, the law should provide, 1st, that no patentee, on 

 surrendering his old patent and having it re-issued, should be allowed 

 to incorporate any invention into the claim of such re-issue, except 

 such as clearly appears in some form in the specification of his original 

 patent. 2d. That no re-issue letters patent should be allowed, after 

 tlie expiration of one year from the time of issuing such patent. The 

 only object of a re-issue should be to correct mistakes, and if the 

 matter be so neglected as not to find the mistake in one year, the 

 consequences belter fall upon those guilty of the neglect, than to be 

 rendered the means of destruction to the rights of those who have no 

 connection with, or power over it. Or, 3d. As a substitute for the 

 remedies suggested, no patent should be re-issued, except on notice to 

 such persons as may have filed a request therefor in the patent office, 

 in the nature of a caveat, and an opportunity afforded to hear objec- 

 tions to such re-issue. 



Another feature of the law requiring correction, is that allowing a 

 party to apply for a patent on some old experiment which he may 

 have made and abandoned for years, and thereby to interfere with 

 other patents already out for the same thing. This practice is liable 

 to the same objection as that of granting re-issues, as now conducted, 

 and the same arguments apply to both. 



This should be so altered that no patent should be granted unless 

 applied for within two years after the completion of the invention, 

 provided a patent had been issued to any other original inventor of 

 the same thing prior to such application. 



Another deficiency in the present law, is the want of a provision 

 to repeal invalid patents. As the law now is, no patent can be re- 

 pealed j however invalid it may be, and by whatever fraudulent means 

 it may have been obtained, it must nevertheless stand for the fourteen 

 years as a terror and a nuisance to the public for the want of a pro- 

 vision of appeal. This is too absurd to require argument. 



And the 17th section of the act ot 1839, under the construction 

 unavoidably put upon it by the Supreme Court of the United States, 

 in consequence of its loose wording, entirely misses its mark, and 



