Patents^ 
inventors only. This was not pretended to be an invention j the 
appellants were possessors only of a new and advantageous me» 
method ; but it v/as the introduction of an improvement of so much 
importance, as fully to justify the bargain made by the legislature 
on behalf of the public with the appellants, Livingston and Fulton. 
It had been fully settled in England, that the introducers of inven"* 
tions and improvements, were entitled to patent rights. 21y. The 
power of granting patents was not of an exclusive, but a concur^ 
rent nature. 
As to the second ground, it was said, that this was no more 
regulating commerce, than laws concerning ferries or stage 
coaches could be said to be so. This had nothing to do with ex* 
ports or imports. 
As to the third ground, it was shewn to be the usual course, 
for the court of chancery to grant injunctions in favour of persons 
in the actual possession of rights; sometimes without, sometimes 
upon terms of speedy trial of the right at law. The appellants 
Fulton and Livingston succeeded. 
In this case, the state allowed some years to enable the appli« 
cants to bring to perfection, and into actual use, their contemplate 
ed improvement : an allowance, which the magnitude of the un- 
dertaking well deserved. 
The other case was decided in Feb. 1813, by judges Duvall and 
Ilouston, of Maryland, in favour of Oliver Evans against some 
millers near Baltimore. I have not seen a report of the case,, 
but I understand that the point decided was this. Oliver Evans’s 
patent for his elevators was declared illegal. He applied for an 
extension of his term of monopoly, and obtained it. In the inter* 
yal, after the annulling of his first patent, and previous to obtain* 
ing his second, while the invention (if it was one) was open to all 
the world, some millers had put up machines of the nature of his 
elevators. On obtaining his second patent, he brought suit against 
them; and the court charged the jury, that the defendants were 
liable to pay for these machines, erected when no law forbad their 
erection, and no patent stood in the way of their use. A decision 
so dubious, that I much wonder at the acquiescence of the defen* 
dants under it. I have understood that a similar decision was 
made by judge Washington and judge Peters in Philadelphia. I 
greatly respect all these gentlemen ; still, the decision appears 
to me a very strange one. 
Such is the lazo on the -subject so far as I can briefly trace it 
VoL IL . ^ 3 L 
