LOOKWOOD V. CLBAVBLAND. 725 �March, 1864, letters patent were granted to one John B. Gale, as assignee of William E. Hogan, for an "improvement in stoves;" that on the sixth of June, 1866, the said patent was surrendered, and re-issued in two separate patents, and that one of the two, numbered 1,988, was for an "improvement in furnaces for treating ores by superheated steam;" that on the third of Jannary, 1865, letters patent No. 45,803 were issued to G. D. De Forest and others, as assignees of Mel- choir B. Mason, for an "improved method of desulphurizing and oxygenizing metallie ores;" that Hogan was the original and first inventor of the improvements claimed in the re- issue No. 1,988; and that the invention therein described was identical with that covered by the Mason patent. The bill prayed that the last-named patent might be adjudged to be void. �The answer set up in defence that the original patent to Gale was not for the same invention as that described and claimed in the Mason patent; that Mason was the prior in- ventor of the inventions therein patented, and that the said re-issue No. 1,988 had been procured and the claims ex- panded for the purpose of fraudulently covering the inven- tions of Mason. It then prayed that the court would decree the re-issue to be void and the patent No. 45,803 to be valid. The proofs were taken and the case argued upon the issues raised by the pleadinga, and the court deoided the several questions, (a) of interference between the patents, (b) of pri- ority of invention, and (c) of the validity of the respective patents, holding that one was good and the other bad. The cause was argued by Mr. Keller for the complainants, and by Mr. Gifford for the defendants, and the best evidence that the method of procedure was regular is found in the fact that neither of these distinguished patent lawyers suggested a doubt, on the argument, that the court had authority, under the provisions of the statute, to decide such issues upon bill and answer. �The next case, in the order of time, is The Union Paper Bag Co. v. Crane, reported in 6 0. G. 801, tried before Judges Clifford and Lowell. The bill was filed under section 4918 ��� �
