Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 10.djvu/298

286 federal bepobteb. �principally in the line of the radii. What the patentee called dished flanches, when put together, made an arch ; and a wheel east with an arch next the hub yields readily in the direction of the radii, and a wheel with such an arch for about half the width of the wheel, and a single plate from the arch to the rim, proved to be a better article than any before discovered, and it has not been much improved upon since. Washburn appears to have discovered the merit of a wheel of thi& kind, and in 1850 he patented one, which he described thus : From each end of the hub two arch-shaped plates project radially outward all around, and join at a point half the semi-diameter of the wheel from the center, or a little beyond it. * * * From the front junction of the two plates there is an extension of a single plate, curved in its radial section, and forming an ogee with the front plate ; on the concave face of this extension curved arms or brackets are affixed, perpendicular to the face of the plate, and gradually taper- ing from the rim to the junction above named of the plates, etc. The claim is for the combination of the arch at the center with the curved plate and arms, Connecting the hub and the rim in the manner and for the purpose set forth. �This Washburn wheel went into the general use which it continues to hold in a few years after 1850 ; certainly as early as 1857. Atwood considered the Washburn wheel to be substantially like his, and reissued his patent in order to obtain what he thought to be the full monopoly of his discovery. His claim is for Connecting the wheel with the hub by two curved plates extending from the hub and form- ing a ring or arch, and joining this ring with the rim by a single plate. Upon the evidence of the drawings in Atwood's original patent, I lind that his "dished flanches" made an arch between the hub and the plate to all intenta like Waahburn's arch, and his single plate in radial waves is the equivalent of a single plate like Wash- burn's. One of the drawings in Atwood's original patent shows the flanches united and forming an arch, The question, then, is whether Atwood has changed his description, either by inclusion or exclusion, so as to embrace something which he had not invented, or had not described, or indicated in his drawings? The cases of GUI v. Wells, 22 Wall. 1, and Riissell v. Dodge, 93 U. S. 460, decide that a patentee reissuing his patent has no right to omit something which he had before described as essential. I do not think the converse is true, that he may not claim something which he had described as one mode of making his machine or article. For the thing which he ��� �