the survey, sale and patent of complainant's land by the United States. In addition the bill charged that under the power of the United States to regulate commerce, harbor lines had at various times been established which extended from the respective shores to the old channel before the new one was constructed and that under the plans approved by the Secretary of War for the new work it was contemplated that harbor lines should extend from the respective shores to that channel.

(e) The relief prayed. The prayer was that the riparian rights of the complainant be recognized and enforced from the shore out to the new navigable channel created by the work done by the United States, and that all rights of the defendants as riparian owners which they asserted to extend across the new channel over to the old channel be declared to be invalid and that they be restrained from asserting or enforcing them.

Coming to test these averments we fail to perceive any ground for holding that the rights asserted rested in any degree whatever upon a substantial claim under the Constitution or laws of the United States or by any possibility involved the construction or application of any law of the United States for the following reasons: First, because as to the claim of riparian rights on the navigable waters in question it was long since affirmatively settled that such claim solely involves a question of state law and therefore at the time the bill was filed it was not open to contend to the contrary. Barney v. Keokuk, 94 U. S. 324; Hardin v. Jordan, 140 U. S. 371; Grand Rapids & Ind. R. R. v. Butler, 159 U. S. 87; Devine v. Los Angeles, 202 U. S. 313. Second, because the mere fact that both parties, the one holding on the Wisconsin shore and the other on the Minnesota shore, had acquired the property by them held from the United States, it is also affirmatively settled, in no way changes the situation. Blackburn v. Portland Mining Co., 175 U. S. 571; Florida Central &c. R. R. v.

Bell, 176 U. S. 321; Shoshone Mining Co. v. Rutter, 177 U. S. 505; Shulthis v. McDougal, 225 U. S. 561, 569. Third, because so far as the references in the bill to the organization of the Northwest Territory and to the various provisions relating to navigable waters are concerned, however interesting they may be historically, we can see not the slightest ground for the contention that they were controlling or in any way could influence the question of the nature and character of the riparian rights enjoyed under the state law by the complainants. Fourth, because we can discover in the averments of the bill no substantive statement indicating that it was contended to the contrary, unless it be that such purpose could be implied as the result of the general averments of the bill which we have quoted concerning the general intent of Congress to preserve free navigation. But if we were to indulge in such assumption the result would not be different, as the averments in question make no reference to any specific legislation of Congress which would have the slightest influence upon the determination of the existence of the riparian rights which the bill asserted. Fifth, because we are clearly of the opinion that the mere fact that Congress in the exercise of its power to improve navigation directed the construction of the new channel affords no basis whatever for the assumption that thereby as a matter of Federal law rights of property, if secured by the state law, were destroyed and new rights of property under the assumption indulged in incompatible with that law were bestowed by Congress. And especially are we constrained to this view by the fact that there is no question here of any interference with work done by the United States under its paramount authority to improve navigation or any attempt to render the result of that work inefficacious. This will be lucidly illustrated by considering for a moment the action of both the courts below, since neither questioned the paramount authority

and right of the United States in aid of navigation to construct the new channel or concerned themselves with any real or imaginary impediment to navigation. This is at once demonstrated by considering that the only difference between the two was the conclusion in the trial court that the effect of constructing the new channel was to extend the riparian rights over and across the old channel to the new, irrespective of the rights of property changed or destroyed thereby, because the new channel was to be treated not as a new work but as the gradual and natural modification of the old, while the court below reached a directly contrary conclusion.

Finally we are of opinion that the question whether the stretch of water and the channel through it be treated as a part of Lake Superior as asserted by the complainant, or be considered at the point in issue as a mere continuation of the St. Louis River as asserted by the defendants (a view held by both the courts below), is wholly negligible for the purpose of determining whether a substantial Federal question was alleged justifying our taking jurisdiction of the cause.

As from what we have said it results that our opinion is that there is no substantial ground for concluding that the jurisdiction of the District Court rested upon any assertion of Federal right, irrespective of diverse citizenship, justifying our review of the court below, it follows that the appeal must be and it is

Dismissed for want of jurisdiction.

FIREBALL GAS TANK & ILLUMINATING COMPANY v. COMMERCIAL ACETYLENE COMPANY AND PREST-O-LITE COMPANY.

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT.

No. 13. Argued October 22, 1915.-Decided November 29, 1915.

A process may be independent of the instruments employed or designed to perform it, and the expiration of a foreign patent for the one may not affect the United States patent for the other.

In this case held that the patent of complainants for acetylene gas tanks is distinctly for an apparatus while the foreign patents which have expired and are claimed by defendant to be identical are explicitly for methods.

There having been conflicting opinions of different Circuit Courts of Appeal on questions of invention and infringement as well as the effect of expiration of foreign patents held that there was no abuse of discretion in the granting of an interlocutory injunction, but that while there is no identity between complainants' patents and expired foreign patents pleaded by the defendant, all other questions should be reserved for the trial of the cause.

THE facts, which involve the propriety of issuing an interlocutory injunction in a suit for infringement of patents for acetylene gas apparatus, are stated in the opinion.

Mr. John H. Bruninga for petitioners.

Mr. John P. Bartlett for respondents.

MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA delivered the opinion of the

court.

By this writ there is brought here for review a decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals affirming an order for an

interlocutory injunction against the infringement of certain letters patent.

The Circuit Court of Appeals considered the question in the case to be the narrow one whether the injunction was properly granted.

Petitioners, who were defendants in the District Court, attack not only that conclusion but contend for the larger relief of a dismissal of the bill.

The Acetylene Company is the owner of letters patent No. 664,383 granted December 25, 1900, for "apparatus, for storing and distributing acetylene gas." The Prest-OLite Company is the exclusive licensee as to the use of the invention on automobiles, carriages and other movable vehicles. Defendants manufacture and sell what is known as the "Fireball Gas Tank"; Soloman is the president of the defendant.

The bill was filed August 17, 1911, and a motion for a preliminary injunction was made. It was heard upon the bill, exhibits, answer, replication and affidavits. The Circuit Court granted the injunction and the order was affirmed, as we have said, by the Circuit Court of Appeals. The court considered that the question before it was whether the trial court had exercised a sound judicial discretion in granting the injunction, and deciding that the trial court had done so, affirmed its action and refused to dismiss the bill, as it was urged to do. Opinion was reserved upon all of the questions which the record presented except the question of the abuse by the trial court of its discretion in the issue of the injunction, as the court said, "until the affidavit stage of this proceeding shall have been passed, until the rights of the parties shall have been tested by the production, hearing and cross-examination of their witnesses according to the salutary and searching practice of the common law, and until the court below, at the final hearing, has investigated and decided the issues these parties raise in