tion is as to the novelty of the alleged invention. The validity of the patent has been sustained by decree of the circuit court for the district of Massachusetts in a case where other anticipatory devices than those which are here relied upon were set up in defense. The present defendants are the licensees of the defendants in the Massachusetts case.

The invention consisted in opening a self-closing faucet by means of a quick-threaded screw-follower, the threads of which are inclined at so great a pitch that, when the power to turn the screw is removed, the pressure of the water and of a spiral spring under the valve forces the valve to its seat, where it is held by the pressure of the water. The specification says that another part of the invention consists in combining with the valve and screw-follower a swivel, so that the rotary move. ment of the spindle shall not be imparted to the valve, which shall have only an axial movement, and thus twisting or friction of the valve shall be prevented. This swivel connection of spindle and valve is frequently used in structures where rotation of the valve is not desired. The faucet has gone into extensive use.

The claims of the patent are

1. The screw-follower H, in combination with the valve of a self-closing faucet, substantially as set forth, and for the purpose described.

2. The combination of the swivel P, screw-follower H, valve K, and spring O, substantially as and for the purpose described.

Self-closing faucets opening by means of a lever, and also by means of a quick-threaded screw, have long been known. The invention in this case is the combination of quick-threaded screw, valve and spring, substantially as described in the specification.

In the pre-existing English patent of Moses Poole, dated April 15, 1845, and in the specification of William Thomas Cheetham, left with the English Commissioner of Patents March 14, 1860, and in the English patent of Thomas Melling, dated October 6, 1857, no spring was used, and by reason of that omission those devices did not anticipate the Jenkins invention.

The French patent of Chretien Morand, dated November 14, 1851, is chiefly relied upon by the defendants as anticipatory of the plaintiffs' patent. The Morand device was designed in part to prevent what is called the "water-hammer," or the unpleasant sound which is caused by the reaction of the water when the valve is suddenly closed. The faucet is of two parts, of unequal size; the induction-way is of larger size than the eduction-way. There are two valves, also of unequal size. The outer valve is in rigid connection with and is turned by a quickthreaded screw-spindle. This valve is so connected with the inner one that the inner valve is guided longitudinally, and is forced to its seat by the same rotation of the screw-follower which operates upon the outer valve. The connection of the inner valve with the spindle is not by means of a swivel-joint. Below the inner valve is a spring, which, with the pressure of the water, causes the valves to be closed when the

power that turns the screw is removed. The patentee remarks that while he prefers two valves, "it will be understood that in certain cases he can employ but one." The manner in which the faucet will then be constructed is not described. By the use of two valves the body of water which is between the valves forms a cushion, which checks the force of the sound or of the blow of the water-hammer when the faucet is suddenly closed.

The principal elements which are employed to produce a self-closing faucet to wit, the screw-follower with a quick-threaded screw, valve, and spring—are found in both the Morand and the Jenkins patents; but the double valves of Morand, and the general method in which the mechanism of the inner valve and the spring was arranged, with reference to each other and the water way, caused his faucet to be cumbersome, and lacking in simplicity and economy. It was a contrivance of many parts, and lacked general utility. Jenkins omitted one of the valves, and of course discarded the connection between the two, and made the passage-ways for the entrance and discharge of the water of the same size, and connected the valve and the screw-follower by a swivel, and generally materially simplified the construction and arrangement of the valve and spring mechanism. He thus made a simple and economical self-closing faucet, which has gone into general use. He has produced the old result of Morand in a more economical and beneficial manner. The invention of Jenkins is subsidiary to that of Morand; but he has essentially changed the Morand device in such manner that, by the change, the thing which is produced is practically a new structure, and his improved device is therefore patentable.

This change was not merely formal, but was, to a certain degree, a structural change and modification of the parts of the Morand faucet, which change required inventive and not merely mechanical skill, and required a sufficient exercise of the inventive faculty to justify the grant of an exclusive right to the use and sale of the article which was produced.

It was not simply the "carrying forward or new or more extended application of the original thought," and was not "a change only in form, properties, or degree." (Smith vs. Nichols, 21 Wall., 112.) Let there be a decree for an injunction and an account.

[United States Circuit Court--District of Massachusetts.]

GOODYEAR DENTAL VULCANITE COMPANY vs. CHARLES G. DAVIS. SAME vs. DEFENDANTS IN SIXTY-SEVEN OTHER CASES.

O. G., vol. xii, p. 1.

In Equity.-Before SHEPLEY, J.-Decided October 5, 1877.

The validity of the Cummings patent, as well as its construction, must be considered as settled by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Smith vs. Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Company.

Cummings's invention includes alone the article or manufacture made by the process described, and is only infringed by using the materials described by him, or their known equivalents, in the described process, or such as in the process are mere substitutes of one material for another without change in process or effect, producing thereby a product the equivalent of his in the properties and functions described. The Cummings patent for a plate of hard rubber or vulcanite is not infringed by a plate made of celluloid, the product and process being essentially different. The courts will endeavor to give such construction to a patent as will support the invention, and will not unnecessarily adopt one that would render the patent invalid.

EDWARD N. DICKERSON and BENJAMIN F. LEE for complainants.

WM. D. SHIPMAN, HENRY BALDWIN, jr., and E. LUTHER HAMILTON for defendants.

SHEPLEY, J.:

OPINION OF THE COURT.

The patent and its reissues granted for the invention of John A. Cummings of "an improvement in artificial gums and palates,” or, as described in the claim, "the plate of hard rubber or its equivalent for holding artificial teeth, or teeth or gums, substantially as described," have been the subject of extensive and prolonged litigation. Since the affirmance by the Supreme Court of the United States in Smith, appellant, vs. Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Company, 3 Otto, 486, of the decree of the circuit court in the test case of Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Com pany vs. Smith, the validity of the reissued patent has been fully estab lished. The decision of the Supreme Court in that case must be considered as final, not only as to the validity, but as to the construction of the patent, which was carefully considered in that case, both in the circuit and the appellate court, as it had previously been in the Wetherbee and the Gardiner cases.

In Vulcanite Company vs. Smith, in the first circuit, this court decided that the patent was not for a process or art, but for the new product resulting from the manipulation by the described new process, and for one of those products in which the process so inheres that the described product can only be made by the described process, and that the invention was one in which the process by which it is made is a part of the substance, the thing made, the manufacture. What the new product was, and wherein the novelty consisted in the process, we shall hereafter have occasion to consider. In the opinion (by Mr. Justice Strong) in the Supreme Court in the same case, the invention patented is thus described:

The invention, then, is a product or manufacture made in a defined manner. It is not a product alone separated from the process by which it is created. The claim refers in terms to the antecedent description, without which it cannot be understood. The process detailed is thereby made as much a part of the invention as are the materials of which the product is composed.

If the defendants, by practicing the process described by Cummings, using the materials described by him, or such materials as are equiva lents and were known equivalents at the date of his invention, in the

described process, or such as, in the process, are mere substitutes of one material for another without any change in the process or in the effect, have produced a product the equivalent of his in the described properties and for the described functions, then, and only then, have they infringed.

The product, the new article of manufacture patented, was a set of artificial teeth, consisting of a plate of hard rubber or vulcanite, with teeth or teeth and gums, secured thereto in the manner described in the patent, by embedding the teeth and pins in the vulcanizable compound, so that it shall surround the teeth and pins while the compound is in a soft state before it is vulcanized, so that when the compound is vulcanized the teeth are firmly secured by the pins embedded in the vulcanite, and there is a tight joint between the vulcanite and the teeth.

This product was a new product, not alone because it substituted one material for another, the material, vulcanite, rigid enough for purposes of mastication, yet pliable enough to yield a little to the mouth, and at the same time light and inexpensive, in place of the hard, unyielding, expensive, and heavy metals previously used, but also in the additional fact that it was made by a process which, taken as a whole, was a new process, by the use of which process "the teeth can easily be baked into the gums, which form one piece with the plate.

The next question to be considered is, what was there new in the described process? The whole process of forming and making a set or case of teeth, including the plate, gums, and teeth, is fully described in the Cummings patent, and this process is so fully described in the case of Vulcanite Company vs. Smith that it becomes unnecessary to repeat it here. It is sufficient to state that in view of the state of the art there was nothing substantially new in that process until we reach this part of the description:

The teeth are provided with pins projecting therefrom in such manner that the rubber which is to constitute the plate will close around them, and by means of them hold or secure the teeth permanently in position. The plaster-mold, with the teeth adhering therein, as just described, is now filled with soft rubber, a little at a time, pressed in with the finger, or in any other convenient way; and care is to be taken that the rubber is made to completely fit into the cavities and around the protuberances, including the pins, and is filled in to the thickness or depth desired to form the plate. I then lock the rubber plate in position by shutting the other half of the plaster-mold over it to insure its retaining its exact form while warming, and then heat or bake it in an oven, or in any other suitable way. The soft rubber or gum, so inserted in the mold, is to be compounded with sulphur, rubber, &c., in the manner prescribed in the patent of Nelson Goodyear, dated May 6, 1851, for making hard rubber, and is to be subjected to sufficient heat to vulcanize or harden it, substantially as directed in that patent. It is also to be colored in imitation of the natural gums, by mixing it with vermillion, or other suitable coloring matter, while in the soft state. After the plate has been heated sufficiently to harden it or convert it into hard rubber or "vulcanite," so called, the mold is removed and the plate is polished ready for use.

It will thus be seen that an essential element of the described product is "a plate of hard rubber or vulcanite," in which the teeth are

embedded; and an essential ingredient in the described process is the soft rubber or gum, compounded with sulphur, rubber, &c., in the manner prescribed in the patent of Nelson Goodyear for making hard rubber, and that an essential step in the described process is the subjecting the compound of soft rubber or gum with sulphur "to sufficient heat to vulcanize or harden it, substantially as described in that patent" (i. e. the patent of Nelson Goodyear, of May 6, A. D. 1851).

The equivalent of that product thus made by that process must there. fore contain the equivalent of the plate of hard rubber, made and manipulated by a process equivalent to the described process of compounding a gum with sulphur, and applying it, and molding it, and incorporating it with the teeth and gums when in a soft state, and then subjecting it to heat, to harden and vulcanize it, in the manner described in the Goodyear patent, or in some equivalent manner, or by some equivalent process.

The defendants use, in making their set of artificial teeth, a plate made of "celluloid," substantially a new material, discovered and pat ented since the date of the Cummings invention. This substance is compounded of cellulose or vegetable fibre and camphor. No rubber or other equivalent gum, and no sulphur or equivalent for sulphur in the process, enter into its ingredients. It is not a vulcanizable compound, and contains no vulcanizing agents in its composition. The camphor in its composition, instead of being a vulcanizing agent, causes the composition to soften instead of harden under the influence of heat. The product when compounded, and before being subjected to heat, is not soft, like soft rubber under like conditions, but hard. In the manipu lation of this material, the process of making a set of teeth, composed of the plate and teeth and gums, is an entirely different process from the process described in the Cummings patent, when compared with that part of the Cummings process which was new in the state of art, and the novelty of which part gave to the Cummings process, when .considered as a whole, the ingredient of novelty and patentability. It is not placed in the mold in a soft, plastic condition, "a little at a time, pressed in with the finger, or in any other convenient way," but in a hard, rigid condition, like horn, or bone, or ivory. It is then subjected to heat, not to vulcanize or harden, but to soften it. It afterward, on being cooled or restored to its original temperature, returns to its orig. inal condition as a hard substance, as when first placed in the mold. No vulcanizing process, or even process of hardening by heat, and no equivalent for any such process, is practiced. In the light of these comparisons it appears evident to the court that the use of celluloid in the manufacture of sets of artificial teeth, as practiced by the defendants, and the manufacture itself, the set or plate of teeth, differ as much both as to process and product, from the process and product described and claimed in the Cummings patent, as that process and that product differed from those previous manufactures which existed before the Cummings invention, and were unsuccessfully relied upon as anticipating it.