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FEDERAL REPORTER.
the change in the cap is also. But all the rest of the Thomas drier is substantially the same in form and operation as the Plummer one, and therefore an infringement upon the plaintiff's patent. Upon the argument counsel for the defendants qnestioned the validity of the plaintiff's patent, on the ground that it lacks novelty. But the patent is prima facie evidence that the patentee is the inventor of the thing patented, and of the novelty and utility thereof. Curt. Pat. § 470 et seq.; Seymour v. Osborne, 11 Wall. 538. No attempt has been made to overcome this evidence of novelty, except by the introduction of patents for drying or preserving fruit or vegetables, as follows: Nos. 121,569, December 5,1871; 121,795, December 12, 1871; 120,253, October 24, 1871; and 4,792, March 5, 1872. But all the machines described in these, except the last, are very different in form, operation, and mechanical contrivance from the PJummer drier; in particular, as they involve the use of machinery for exhausting or blowing the air into or from the machine. ' The last one does rely upon the natural tendency of h6l1ted air to move upwards, as the Plummer machine does, but its mechanism and contrivance appear much more complex and costly. It appearing, then, that the Thomas machine, although in one respect an improvement upon the Plummer one, is in other respects an infringement upon it, and that the defendants are manufacturing and selling their machine for considerably less than the price of the Plummer one, and thereby preventing the sale of the plaintiff's machine, to its manifest injury, a provisional injunction will be allowed until the final hearing 011, the further order of this court, upon giving bond in the sum of $2,000, with sureties, to the approval of the master.
COTE and others
'V.
MOFFITT.
(Circuit Court,' D. Massacltusetts. July 2, 1881.) 1. HE-ISSUE No. 7,356-BoOT AND SHOE STIFFENING MACHINE-ANTICIPATJONVALIDITy-INFRINGEMENT. Re-issued letters patent No. 7,356, granted October 24, 1876, to Louis for macllinery for forming boot and shoe stiffeners, !teld" not anticipated by letters patent No. 63,550, granted John R. Moffitt, April 2, 1867, for apparatus for molding and vulcanizing articles of rubber, and letters patent No. 135,150, granted January 21, 1873, to John Pearce, for machine for bending sheet metal; also, 'ldd fJalid, and infringed by machines constructed under letters patent No. 178,869, granted June 20, 1876, to John R. Moffitt, for and machine for manufacturing counter-stiffeners for boots and shoes.
COTE V. MOFFITT. 2. bAME-8AME-INFRINGEMENT.
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Complainants' invention, consisting of a machine for making stiffeners fot" boots and shoes, having a single roller, whose head, rounded or curved to the required shape, and roughened, seizes the stiffener blank, and forces it to pass between such roller-head and a stationary concave mold, or die, conforming in shape to such head, held, infringed by defendant's combination, which embodies such device as one of its elements.
In Equity. Ohauncey Smith and Tlwmas L. Wakefield, for complainants. B. F. Butler, E. F. Hodges, and J. E. Maynadier, for defendant. LOWELL, C. J. The plaintiff Cote is the patentee and general owner, and the other plaintiffs are licensees under him, of the reissued patent No. 7,356; the original having been issued in February, 1874. This is one of three suits betweeen the sam.e parties. The first, which I decided some time since, was brought by the now and I held defendant upon his patent No. 127,090, granted in that the machine of Cote did not infringe that patent. Since the date of Cote's patent another has been taken out by the defendant, in which he claims certain improvements in machinery, and likewise a proeess. I have this day decided that the claim for a process cannot be sustained. The subject-matter of these several patents is the machinery and processes fur making counters or stiffenel's of leather, or leather board, for boots and shoes. The defendant's patent of 1872 described a machine for doing this work by the joint action of several rollers; the Cote machine has a single roller, which has a head or end rounded or curved to the required shape, and roughened, which seizes the counter blank and forces it to pass between the head of the roller and a stationary concave mold or die, conforming in shape to the head or "former." I said in the first case that this was the first machine which appeared to be capable of doing the work efficiently. The material is one which requires very great pressure to"be exerted upon it in order that the shape given to the counter shall be permanent. I thought that the defendant's machine of 1872 could not be made to exert pressure enough to be of much practical value. A good deal of evidence has been introduced into this case to prove thltt I was mistaken, and tbat counters can be made upon this machine, if certain changes are made in it, which, it is said, a skilled workman would readily see the need of and snpply. However this mlLY be, the operation of tIJe Cote machine in forcing the material through a stationary mold by a single roughened "former" is better, and is different. I see no reason to say that the difference is not enough to support
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Cote's patent if Moffitt's machine of 1872 will do everything which his witnesses say it will do. Two machines for working upon thin strips or plates of sheet metal are introduced as anticipating the Cote invention,-one made by the defendant in ]867, and one patented by Pearce in lS73. These machines seized the metal between two rollers and carried it round a guide or "former," which gave it the required curve. I do not find it proved that such a guide or former would give a permanent curve to leather or leather board, nor that the single roughened toller of Cote is the equivalent, in suoh a machine, 0.£ the two rollers used in the old machines. The infringement ,charged against the defendant is in the construction and use of machines substantially like those :described in his patent of 1876. That patent describes several improvements upon' all old machines, but they seem to be additions to the Cote machine rather than total variations from it. The machines complained of have the single roughened former and the stationary mold or die of the patent in suit, and seem to me to operate in the same way, and to infringe the patent. Decree for the complainants.
GRIFFITHS and another v. HOLMES, BOOTH & HAYDENS. (Oircuit Oourt, D. Oonnecticut. June 27, 1881.)
1.
RE-ISSUE No. 5,067-SuSPENSION RING FOR BUSINESS CAll:Ds-NOVELTY-VALIDITY.
Re-issued letters patent No. 5,067, granted H,:. S. Griffiths, September 24,1872, for improved suspension rings for business' cards, held, invalid for want of novelty. Complainant's device, consisting of a ring of thin sheet metal having a shank or bottom piece provided with sharp spurs, which are pushed through the card and turned down on the opposite side, held, anticipated by the Twitchell umbrella fastener, being a ring of sheet metal with spurs, which are pushed through the India-rubber band which serves to keep a folded umbrella in place, the ring attaching the end of the band to a button or hook.
In Equity. John Van Santvoord, for plaintiffs. Geo. E. Terry and J. J. Coombs, for defendant. SHIPMAN, D. J. This is a bill in equity to restrain the defendant from the infringment of re-issued letters patent of September 24, 1872, to Josephine Cary and Clementine Griffiths, assignees of Harry S. Griffiths, for an improved suspension ring for business cards, so that