Joseph McKenna

“ The single question here is whether the United States patent expired with the British patent according to the laws which existed when it was issued, or whether its existence was preserved by the treaty of Brussels. ”

“ If the treaty be construed as we think it must be construed, in accordance with the declaration of the Conference at the instance of the American delegates, it has no application to the Cameron patent. If it be not self-executing, as it is certainly the sense of Congress that it was not, and seems also to be the sense of some of the other contracting nations, and as the act of 1903 did not make effective article 4 bis, the provisions of § 4887 apply to the Cameron patent, and caused it to expire with the British patent for the same invention. ”

“ On the one hand, it cannot say that the United States will not enforce the additional act it has ratified and has asked should go into effect. On the other hand, it is without information that the bills relative to industrial property that have been framed in the committee organized under the act of June 4, 1898 [30 Stat. at L. 431, chap. 379] , have been passed by Congress; and it is constrained to admit that, according to judicial precedents, the new treaty provisions could not be enforced until the corresponding legislation shall have been revised.' The required legislation was urged. ”