Samuel Freeman Miller

“ As regards the right to a patent for an i vention like this, which can be of use to no one but the government of the United States, and which is, therefore, in effect a contract by the United States that it will not use that which is essential to some of its most important operations without paying to the patentee whatever he may demand for the use of his invention, I have great doubt,-a doubt which it would have been necessary to solve in this case if the majority of the court had believed the patent sued on valid. ”

“ In his original patent this is described as a cylinder into which is fastened something which receives the indelible ink used to obliterate the stamp, and which imparts it to the surface of the stamp by the blow or strike already mentioned. This, he said in his original patent, was made of wood, cork, rubber, or other suitable material.
It was discovered, by experience, afterwards that iron was a more suitable material than wood, or cork, or rubber, and in the reissue of the patent, on which this action is founded, iron is mentioned as one of these suitable materials. ”