Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/913

PUTNAM V. VON HOFE. 901 �the stopper by pins which act as pivots ; but the plaintiffs' expert does not concur in this view, and he is clearly right, because while the stopper is being forced to its place in Jean- notat there is no pivotai action between the stopper and the yoke, as there is in the De Quillfeldt stopper, but only a slid- ing motion. Nor is there in Jeannotat any pivotai connec- tion between the lever and the stopper, as there is in the defendant's stopper. In regard to Cronk, the plaintiffs' expert testifies that it bas no lever; that it bas not suchthree pivotai connections as are referred to in the De Quillfeldt pat- ent ; that there is nothing in it to produce a locking action ; and that the stopper is not pivoted to the yoke. In regard to Eobinson and Jenkins, he testifies that the stopper is not piv- oted to the yoke. In regard to Chalus, he testifies that there are but two pivots. The Jeannotat, Cronk, Robinson and Jenkins, and Chalus patents were tinder consideration, on ■final hearing, by Judge McKennan, in a suit before him on the plaintiffs' re-issue, against Hammer and Sunderman, and were held to be no answer to the suit. The stopper which was held in that case to be an infringment of the first claim of the plaintiffs' re-issue, appears to be like the defendant's stopper in the partioulars before set forth, in which that stopper is held to infringe the said first claim. �The defendant's expert is of opinion that the defendant's stopper does not contain the De Quillfeldt invention because it has projections, and the ends of the lever are not pivoted to the bottle neck, and the yoke is pivoted io the neck wire, and the yoke' is not pivoted to the stopper, and the lever is not pivoted to the lower ends of the yoke. These views would have force if the plaintiffs' re-issue were required by the prior state of the art to be limited to the formai modes of construction described. But De Quillfeldt is shown to have been the first person to combine, by three pivotai connections, the four elements of the first claim of the plaintiffs' re-issue in a combination having the mode of operation set forth in said claim. The success of his stopper was due to such com- bination. AU prior stoppers failed of the resuit for want of Buch combination. The defendant did not make his stopper ��� �