Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/679

664 FEDERAIi REPORTER. �is ^asy after the desired thihg is obtained to see how an old thing could have been adapted or altered. �The Bail, the Meyer, and the Littlefield patents were all of them considered by the patent-office in granting the original Dayis patent, and the Bail patent wao again considered by it in granting the reis- sue, as appears by the record. �The defendants abo adduce Bnglish patent No. 1,204, dated May I3, 1859, to William' S. Thomson, for " improvements in the manu- facture of hooped skirts." Their expert, with the Davis de vice and the Thomson device before him, bas eut away parts of the former and claims to have cohverted it into the latter. It may not be diffi- cult for ingenuity, with both articles in view, and with the problem given to convert the later one into the earlier one, to do so. But the inventor of the earlier onehad only that one, and did not pro- duee the later one. There is nothing in the Thomson device to aug- gest the Davis box-loop. It required adaptation and invention to convert it into the box-loop. An exact reproduction, in a model, of figure 8 of the drawings of the Thomson patent shows that there is no identity between it and the Davis structure. �The Prench patent to Fransson, No. 25,417, granted November 15, 1855, for a clinched fastening for gloves, may also be dismissed, It contains several features which are availed of in the Davis loop, yet to pass from it to that required adaptation beyond that existing in a mere double use. �It is not necessary to allude to the numerous other old patents introduced by the defendants. The foregoing remarks apply to all of them, and also to the alleged prier structures, respecting whioh oral testimony is given. Attention is directed by the defendants to an exhibit of theirs marked "Boit-guide and Catch, " alleged to represent a prior structure. The exhibit is not claimed to be a structure which was actually made before Davis' invention, but only to represent one. It is a boit-guide consisting of a metal plate, with two three-sided metal loops on it, each loop open at its two ends, which open ends are lengthwise of the plate, this plate being intended to be placed on one article, and of another metal plate, with one three-sided metal loop on it, open at its two ends, which open ends are lengthwise of the plate, this plate being intended to be placed on an adjoining arti- cle. Each loop has on it, projecting downward from the lower edge of each vertical side of it, a spur or lug, integral with it, and passing through a slot in the metal plate, and bent over and clinched down on the opposite side of the plate. The exhibit in question is intro- ��� �