Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/167

COTE V. MOFFITT. 153 2. bAME— Same — Inpbingembnt. Complainants' Invention, consisting of a machine for making stift'eners for boots and shoes, liaving a single roller, whose head, rounded or curved to the required ahape, and roughened, seizes the stifEener blank, and forces it to pass between such roller-head and a stationaiy concave mold, or die, conforming in shape to such head, held, infringed by defendant's combination, which em- bodies such device as one of its elements. In Equity. Chauncey Smith and Thomas L. Wakefield, for complainants. B. F. Butler, E. F. Hodgeg, and J. E. Maynadier, for defendant. LowBLL, C. J. The plaintiff Cote is the patentee and general owner, and the other plaintiflfs are licensees under him, of the re- issued patent No. 7,356 ; the original having been issued in February, 1874, This is one of three suite betweeen the same parties. The first, which I deoided some time since, was brought by the now defendant upon his patent No. 127,090, granted in 1872, and I held 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 process. I have this day deoided that the claim for a process can- not be Bustained. The subject-matter of these several patents is the machinery and processes for making counters or stiffeners 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 tobe 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 that I was mis- taken, and that counters can be made upon this machine, if certain changes are made in it, which, ib is said, a skilled workman would readily see the need of and supply. However this miiy be, the oper- ation of the Cote machine in forcing the material through a station- ary 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