This is a bill in equity filed by Hosea Ball and Margaret Haughery, against Justin Langles and N. A. Baumgarden, composing the firm of Baumgarden & Langles. It charges an infringement by the defendants of reissued letters-patent granted to Ball, June 14, 1870, for an alleged new and useful improvement in ovens. The original patent was granted to him on the 23d of September, 1856, for a period of fourteen years from that date. On the 12th of October, 1869, this original was surrendered, and a reissue was granted. A second reissue was granted on the 14th of June, 1870, numbered 4026. Subsequently an extension of the patent was granted for seven years, from Sept. 23, 1870. It is upon the second reissue (No. 4026), thus extended, that this suit is founded. The charge of the bill is, that the defendants have constructed such an oven as that patented, with intent to use it. The Circuit Court dismissed the bill, and from that decree the complainants have appealed.
The first question now to be considered under the pleadings and evidence is, whether the reissued patent (No. 4026) is valid. One of the defences set up by the answer is, that the reissue is not for the same invention as that described, claimed, and shown in the original letters, and it is averred that the surrender of those letters and the first reissue were for the purpose of introducing new matter not shown, suggested, or indicated in the specification, drawings, or model filed with the original application, and also for the purpose of obtaining a claim broader than the invention, and broad enough to cover the invention of subsequent inventors and patentees. If these averments of the answer are well founded the reissue is void, and it will be unnecessary to consider the other defences set up.
When the reissues of 1869 and 1870 were granted, the Commissioner of Patents had authority under the acts of Congress to grant reissues only in certain specified cases. These were whenever a patent was inoperative or invalid by reason of a defective or insufficient specification, or by reason of the patentee's claiming as his own invention or discovery more than he had a right to claim as new, if the error had arisen by inadvertence, accident, or mistake, without any fraudulent or deceptive intention. The commissioner was invested with authority to determine whether the surrendered patent was valid by reason of a defective or insufficient specification, or because the patentee had claimed more than he had a right to claim as new; and if he found such to be the case, and found also that the error had been due to inadvertence, accident, or mistake, without fraud, his decision was conclusive, and not subject to review by the courts. But the law did not confer upon him jurisdiction to grant a reissue embracing new matter, or a broader invention than what was revealed by the original specification, or drawings or models, except in some cases where there was neither model nor drawing. A reissue for anything more is, therefore, inoperative and void. Accordingly, this court has repeatedly held that if, on comparing a reissue with its original, the former appears on its face to be for a different invention from that described or indicated in the latter, it must be declared invalid. Seymour v. Osborne, 11 Wall. 516, 544; Russell v. Dodge, 93 U.S. 460.