Argument against the Wells Patent.

of this court in the case just named that the reissued machine patent was obtained.

A patent may be valid and may have been so held to be by a court, without being broad enough to cover the whole invention. In such cases the act of Congress tenders the patentee relief by reissuing to make his claim broader.* It is no objection to a patent that it has been more than once reissued. If the last reissued patent claimed under be adapted to the invention made by the patentee, and described in his original patent, it is valid as a reissue, and it is immaterial how many prior reissues there may have been, or what may have been the proceedings or mistakes in applications for or in the granting of such prior reissues.‡

The action of the Commissioner of Patents in accepting a surrender of a patent and granting a reissue, is conclusive that the prerequisites to the surrender did exist, unless fraud be shown.§

4. As to the reissued patent No. 1086,-the process patent. Ponsford's patent, it is true, did exhibit a process of removing the body from the cone on which it had been formed, similar to the process of Wells. But the invention was defective in not presenting or forming the body prior to its removal. It was, therefore, an incomplete invention and substantially different.

Messrs. George Harding and Courtland Parker, for defendants:

As to the originality of Wells's machine patent.

In view of the prior inventions of Williams, the extent of Wells's invention in the machine patent (No. 1087) may be thus analyzed:

* Batten v. Taggart, 17 Howard, 83.

O'Reilly v. Morse, 15 1d., 112.

Goodyear v. Day, 2 Wallace, Jr., 283; Woodworth v. Stone, 3 Story, 749, 753; Allen v. Blunt, & Id., 742-3; Carver v. Braintree Manufacturing Co., 2 Id., 432-8.

Stimson v. The Westchester R. R. Co., 4 Howard, 380, 404; Same v. The Philadelphia and Trenton R. R. Co., 14 Peters, 448.

Argument against the Wells Patent.

I. In the machine patent, Wells substituted as a disintegrating agent for the carding machine, shown in figure 6, page 538, the revolving brush, shown in figure 9, page 544. II. Wells adopted from Williams's machine the following:

1. The hollow perforated removable formers, as shown in figures 11 and 12, resting on horizontal wheels:

2. Two revolving perforated removable wheels, having rims projecting below to turn on, and secure the joint, and cogs on their circumference to he driven by; as shown in figure 13.

3. A central pinion, or an upright shaft, for driving these wheels. (See figure 14.)

Fig. 15.

4. A cone-box capable of revolving, connected by a rim with a lower box or conduit leading to the exhaust-box (as shown in figure 15), having two sockets above for the conewheels.

5. A conduit from the cone-box to the fan-box, with a socket above for the cone-box to revolve in, as in figure 16.

Argument against the Wells Patent.

6. A fan-box and fan with side passages for entrance of air, as in figure 17.

Fig. 17.

H

Fig. 16.

7. The use of a hollow perforated cover, to place over the fur while on the former, after the material had been deposited, to retain it in position when removed from the exhaust, and while subsequently treated.

III. Wells devised and introduced between his peculiar disintegrating apparatus or brush and the vacuum cone apparatus of Williams, the peculiar conduit, or trunk, or tunnel, as it is called, with its hood and its flap, shown in figure 20, page 560, and thus produced the complete machine shown in figure 8, ante, p. 543.

As to the originality of the process patent of Wells.

In view of the prior inventions of Williams and of Ponsford, the Wells invention, in the process patent of Wells (reissue No. 1086), may be thus analyzed:

Wells describes the covering of the body after it is formed on the cone:

First, with a cloth, which was the invention of Ponsford. Second, with a perforated metallic conical case, which was the invention of Ponsford and Williams.

Third, the immersion of the whole in a vessel of boilinghot water, which was the invention of Ponsford.

It is, therefore, only necessary to say, that in view of Ponsford's English patent, Wells's reissue, No. 1086, claiming exactly the same invention, should be declared to be void.

Argument against the Wells Patent.

As to Boyden's machine: Williams, Wells, and Boyden all used

Boyden, on the other hand, substituted for Williams' carding

Argument against the Wells Patent.

As to the infringement of the machine patent:

The defendants do not infringe this patent upon any construction of its claims which would not require the patent to be declared void. In view of the new state of the art, as shown by Williams's patent and that of Fosket, Wells invented nothing but the peculiar device called a "trunk," with two appendages, to wit, a "hood" and a lower "flap" placed between the revolving brush or fur-throwing mechanism and the perforated vacuum cone; and to this combination of brush, trunk and cone his claim should be limited by the court. The defendants do not use Wells's invention, nor its principle. Wells proceeded upon the principle of disseminating (or dissolving, as it were) the particles of fur thoroughly in a flowing stream of air, the movement of which air was readily controlled by a tube, on wellknown principles of aerostatics or hydraulics. The word "tunnel," used in Wells's specification of 1846, was perhaps the most expressive word, as indicating a tube having a peculiar inlet and peculiar outlet, such as the ordinary liquor and other tunnels.

Boyden abandoned all notion of the tube and its vibrating appendage, and, instead of attempting to carry the fur by an inclosed stream of air, commenced with the idea of treating the particles of fur as susceptible of having sufficient momentum imparted to them to be projected for definite distances and definite directions through the open air, and bases his machine upon that idea.

Boyden's machine may be thus analyzed:

1. He employed a revolving picker instead of a brush. 2. He adopted, as he had a right to do, the revolving vaeuum cone apparatus pateated by Williams, and above set forth.

3. Instead of placing a "trunk," as shown in figure 20, between the disintegrating apparatus and the cone, he placed in front of and opposite to the picker a series of plates having different angles of elevation, so as to throw different portions of fibres of fur to different heights on the cone.