69 F. 408 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern Ohio | 1895
This suit is brought under section 4915 of the Revised Statutes of the United States to establish the right
From the beginning to the end of the record there is a conflict of evidence. The decision of the cause must depend upon the conclusions of fact, to be deduced from the opposing and irreconcilable statements of witnesses, many of them interested. The questions of fact are the same that were presented to and passed upon by the officials of the patent office. Once they were decided in favor of the complainant Hisey, and three times in favor of Ligowsky, defendant’s assignor. Upon the final decision by the commissioner, the patent was issued to the defendant. More testimony has been taken on both sides,—some in confirmation, some in denial, mostly cumulative or impeaching,—but the same conflict remains, and the
Inasmuch as it is conceded that, if Hisey is the prior inventor, he is entitled to his patent, the only question to be determined is the question of priority. The burden of proof is upon the complainants; and they must establish their contention beyond a reasonable doubt. Coffin v. Ogden, 18 Wall. 120; Cantrell v. Wallick, 117 U. S. 689, 6 Sup. Ct. 970; Morgan v. Daniels, 153 U. S. 120, 14 Sup. Ct. 772. In Morgan v. Daniels, the latest and clearest and most pointed of all the cases, Mr. Justice Brewer, announcing the opinion of the court, said that the case was something more than an appeal; “that it was an application to the court to set aside the action of one of the executive departments of the government; * * * that it was something in the nature of a suit to set aside a judgment, and as such not to be sustained by a mere preponderance of evidence,”—citing Butler v. Shaw, 21 Fed. 321, 327. He further said that it was “a controversy over a question of fact which had once been settled by a special tribunal, intrusted with full power in the premises. As such, it might be well argued, were it not for the terms of the statute, that the decision of the patent office was a finality upon every matter of fact,”—citing Smith v. Vulcanite Co., 93 U. S. 486; Lehnbeuter v. Holthaus, 105 U. S. 94, to the point that not only is the burden of proof upon the party setting up prior invention against a patent, but that every reasonable doubt should be resolved against him. He declared that those two cases were closely in point,- because the plaintiff in Morgan v. Daniels, like the defendant in the cases cited, was “challenging the priority awarded by the patent office, and should, we think, be held to as strict proof.” He referred to the “presumption in favor of that which has once been decided,” and to the fact that' that presumption “is often relied upon to justify an appellate court in sustaining the decision below,” citing Crawford v. Neal, 144 U. S. 585, 596, 12 Sup. Ct. 759, where, the court below having concurred in the findings of fact and conclusions of law reported by a master, the supreme court said that they were “to be taken as presumptively correct, and, unless some obvious error has intervened in the application of the law, or some serious or important mistake has been made in the consideration of the evidence, the decree should
It lias been held that a new trial at law will not be granted upon the ground of the discovery of cumulative or of impeaching or contradicting evidence merely. Ames v. Howard, 1 Sumn. 482, Fed. Cas. No 326; Brown v. Evans, 17 Fed. 912; Carr v. Gale, 1 Curt. 384, Fed. Cas. No. 2,433; U. S. v. Potter, 6 McLean, 182, Fed. Cas. No. 16,077; Macy v. De Wolf, 3 Woodb. & M. 193, Fed. Cas. No. 8,933. By parity of reasoning, the decision of the commissioner ought not to be set aside upon merely cumulative or impeaching evidence. The ad