470 FEDKBAL BEFOBTEB. �ticated as in section 892, shall be prima fade evidence of llie granting thereof, and their contents, Tidd, that a copy of a Prench patent, certifled by the director of the national conservatory of arts and manufactures, under its seal, and verifled by the ministers of agriculture and commerce, and of foreign aSairs, under their seals, but net under the great seal of France, was properly authenticated and admissible in evidence. �3. Bamb— Frbkch Patent — Public Patent— Secbet Patent — " Pat- �bntbd" conbtrued. �There are patents in France which may, for public and special rea- sons, be kept secret. The expression "patented," in the statute, would "seem, f rom the signification of the word, to mean only inven- tions laid open to the public and protected to the inventors, and such , is the construction which it bas hitherto received. �4. Bame— Open Patent— Secbbt Patent — Poblic Patent Onlt m �Condition to bb Cektified. ;. �It being objected that it did not appear from the copy of ^ foreign patent, introduced to show prier invention, whether it was an open patent or secret one, held, that since only pulitid records are provable by copy certifled merely, and as the authorities of a foreign goVern- ment would not have a patent in a condition to be certifled if it was secret, the fact that it is certifled shows it to be what could be cer- tifled, and that the invention described by it was, in the sense of the patent law, patented by the or^in^l patent of the copy produced. 6. Patent No. 63,104— Impbotkd Match-Box. , ■ �Patent No. 63, 104, dated March 19, 1867, for an improved match-box, hddf invaiia, by reasbn of prior French patent No. 62,907, dated Febni- ary 6, 1862, for the same invention. �In Equity. �Arthur v. Briesen, for plaintiff. �Henry E. Davies, Jr., for defendant. �Wheeler, D. J. This suit is brought upon letters patent of the United States No. 63,10i, dated March' 19, 1867,' and issued to the orator, for a match-bpx. Among the defences set up in the answer is one that the same invention had been previously patented in letters patent of France No. 52,907, dated February 6, 1862, and a certificate of addition thereto, dated April 29, 1^64, granted and issued to one Caussemille. The orator's invention is not shown earlier than the. patent. The defendant has filed in evidence what purports to be a copy of the patent set up in the answer, certifled from France. The orator objects to this copy as evidence, for want of sufSeient authentication, and ingists that, if admissi- ��� �
