Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/53

38 H'EDEBAIi aSFOBiEB. �McCloskey V. Do Bois. �yOircuit Court, 8. D. Ifew York. 1881. �1. Lettbbs Patent— New Etidence— Motion to Reopen. �A case will not Ije reopened for the introduction of new evidence, unless tho new evidence would vary the case, and probably lead to a different resuit, �James A. Whitney, for complainant. �Peter Van Antwerp and Bodney Mason, for defendant. �Wheeleb, D. J. This cause bas been heard since a decretai order for dismissing the bill of complaint, and before decree signed, upon a motion of the plaintiff to reopen the case for the introduction of new evidence as to the novelty and utility of the patented trap. It is plain that the motion sbould not be granted unless the new evi- dence would vary the case and probably lead to a different resuit. �The patent is simply for a die-drawn seamless soft-metal plumber's trap, made by forcing ^he metal through dies at varying velocities on opposite sides. It describes nothing to distinguish these traps from others except the mode of , manufacture and longitudinal striations appearing upon them, which are merely the resuit of the manufacture, and have nothing to do with the quality or operation of the traps. The patent assumed that soft-metal traps were before known and in use, and, besides, that fact was a matter of common knowledge, of which the court took judicial notice. There was no evidence as to the quality and characteristics of the die-drawn traps as compared with the cast traps before most in use. The new evidence would tend to show that their walls have greater solidity and more perfect uniformity, and that they are more elastic, and that the quality of the metal is changed and improved by the process of drawing, and that they have largely superseded all others in use. AU these differ- ences are due to the process of manufacture, in forcing the metal through dies, all of which effects were before well known. They are the same as the differences between cast and drawn lead pipe, as was shown in Leroy v. Tatham, 14 How. 156. There the testimony was that the drawn lead pipe "was superior in quality and strength, capa- ble of resisting much greater pressure, and more free from defects, than any pipe before made; that in all the modes of making lead pipe previously known and in use it could be made only in short pieces, but that by this improved mode it could be made of any required lengtb, and also of any required size, and that the introduc- tion of lead pipe made in the mode described had superdeded the use ��� �