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nation which embraces it, in my judgment, is. Such combination is the mechanical means whereby the art of recording and reproducing speech and sounds is first made practically effective. To deny to it the dignity and quality of invention would be to deny the patentability of every first great mechanical success. The substance upon which the record is cut and the reproducer thus loosely mounted, by which it is enabled to follow the undulations of the groove, together constitute an effective portion of the mechanism. Either without the other would be useless for the purpose of a graphophone or phonograph. Together they bring about a successful result. They therefore constitute a patentable combination. The defendant's device, in the essential characteristic of a loose joint, so as to enable the style to follow the groove of the record, is like the complainant's reproducer. It is intended to perform the function of imparting to a diaphragm the vibrations consequent upon the undulations in this groove. Without the complainant's record the defendant's device would be useless. It is never used except in connection with complainant's record. In the practical use, therefore, of defendant's device one of the elements of complainant's combination is actually and necessarily employed.

It appears, however, that these records are sold by the complainant on the open market, and it is contended that such sale releases this element of the combination from the monopoly of the patent. I do not concur in this view. To make the graphophone more widely useful, the complainants make many records, embodying music, speech, and other sounds, and distribute these, by sale, to the users of the phone; but the record thus distributed remains an integral part of the combined mechanism. It is not a product of the machine, but still a part of it. It is not unusual, in many mechanisms, that some elements of their combination must be more frequently renewed than others. The sale of such parts, segregated from the machine, is only the replenishing of the combination by a substitution of a new element for the one worn out. Such action does not break the patentability of the combi nation. So, in this combination, substitution, by sale, of one or many records for another, though not due to the same necessity, ought to receive the same consideration. The keys of a piano may be replaced without releasing the combination of which the keys are an element from the monopoly of a patent. I can see no reason why the record of a graphophone may not, though for a different purpose, be likewise replaced without breaking the validity of the combination. Inasmuch, therefore, as defendant's device is only to be used in connection with one of the elements of complainant's patentable combination, I am of the opinion that it infringes such combination as is expressed in claims 22 and 24, already quoted.

A decree will therefore be entered for an injunction and accounting.

[U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals-Seventh Circuit.] NATIONAL HARROW COMPANY v. QUICK et al.

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Letters Patent No. 201,946, issued April 2, 1878, to De Witt C. Reed, for improvements in harrows, construed and Held void for want of invention.

2. ANTICIPATION-WHAT CONSTITUTES.

To constitute anticipation of a device it is enough that such a device has been in well-established use, whether it originated in design or by accident.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Indiana.

Before WOODS, JENKINS, and SHOWALTER, Judges.

Mr. W. H. H. Miller and Mr. E. H. Risley for the appellant.
Mr. V. H. Lockwood for the appellees.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE.

The appellant, the National Harrow Company, brought this suit against the appellees, Frank Quick and E. Lindahl, to obtain an injunction against infringement of Letters Patent No. 201,946, issued April 2, 1878, to De Witt C. Reed, assignor of the complainant, for improvements in harrows. The specification and drawings of the patent, excepting formal parts, are as follows:

My invention relates to improvements in harrows, and more particularly to that class of harrows wherein the teeth are spring-teeth, or of bow form.

My invention consists more particularly in a novel means for adjusting the said tooth so as to give to its point a greater or less depth of cut, which is effected by making that portion of the tooth which is adjacent to the frame curved and resting on a curved seat, and secure it thereto by a clip or its equivalent, by the loosening of which the tooth may be thrown forward or pushed back beneath its fastening, thus lowering or raising its point, as will be hereinafter set forth and claimed.

In the drawings, Figure 1 is a plan view, and Fig. 2 a sectional view, of a harrowtooth and section of a harrow-frame embodying my invention. Fig. 3 presents a separate view of a clip which secures the tooth upon its curved seat. Fig. 4 represents a variation, wherein, instead of employing a clip, I may employ two bolts and a plate. Fig. 5 presents another variation, in which a plate is secured by a clip passing over it. Fig. 6 presents another variation, wherein the clip is employed, but introduced from the opposite side of the frame from that upon which the tooth rests, and in connection therewith a plate and nuts.

A is a section of a harrow-frame. B is a curved harrow-tooth, the tooth being of a character known as "spring-tooth," though, so far as my invention is concerned, the said tooth may or may not be a spring-tooth. C is a curved seat, formed on the frame, and made to conform in its curvature to that of the curved tooth which rests upon it. D is a clip whereby the tooth is secured upon its seat. The cross bar or loop portion of the clip is formed concave upon its under side, and with a concavity greater than the corresponding portion of the harrow-tooth, so that when brought down to a firm bearing upon the tooth this cross portion of the clip will find a firm

bearing at its edges upon the tooth, and hold it snugly and rigidly upon its curved seat.

If the depth of cut is too great it is only necessary to loosen the nuts upon the clip, and then slide the tooth backward on its curved bearing, which action raises the point of the tooth. When in its proper position the clip is again firmly secured by the nuts. If the tooth has not a suficient depth of cut, the clip is loosened and the tooth slid forward on its curved bearing, and finally secured in its proper position.

It is apparent that my invention admits of variations without departing from its principle. Thus, instead of employing a continuous clip, that part resting upon the tooth may be simply a bar or plate perforated at its ends for the passage of bolts, which bolts are drawn snug by nuts upon the other side of the frame. So, also, a plate might rest upon the harrow-tooth, and be held in its place by an ordinary clip, of uniform dimensions throughout, the plate not being perforated, but simply

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grooved along that portion where the clip passes, in order to hold the clip in its place; or the clip might be inserted from the opposite side of the frame, and its prongs passed through the plate adjacent to the harrow-tooth, and be there secured by nuts.

Other forms will readily suggest themselves, the principal feature of my invention being that the tooth shall rest upon a curved seat, and be capable of being adjusted longitudinally through its said seat, and thereby either elevate or depress its working-point.

I am aware that it is not new with me, broadly considered, to adjust a harrowtooth longitudinally upon its frame, so as to vary the depth of cut thereof, and hence I do not include the same in my invention.

What I claim is

1. The combination, with a harrow-frame and harrow-tooth secured thereon, so as

to be longitudinally adjusted, of a fastening-clip, formed as described, whereby only its two transverse edges have bearing against the tooth, substantially as set forth. 2. The combination, with a harrow-frame provided with a curved seat, of a curved tooth and clip or its equivalent, D, substantially as and for the purposes described. Numerous prior patents are referred to in the answer, but two only are in evidence-namely, No. 95,458, issued on October 5, 1869, to David L. Garver, for improvements in harrows, and No. 125,216, issued on April 2, 1872, to Linus A. Paddock, for improvements in horse hayrakes. The harrows of the appellees, on which the charge of infringement is predicated, were made in conformity with Letters Patent No. 444,248, granted on January 6, 1891, to Huson V. Miller, in which the invention is said to relate to spring-tooth harrows

and particularly to the manner of securing the teeth to the cross-beams of the hollow frame.

The characteristic features are a diagonal channel on the under side of the cross-beam, in which is sunken a rectangular metal plate, one corner of which extends beyond the beam on either side. The curved tooth is placed in the channel against this plate, and is held in position tightly or loosely by means of a transverse clip and bolts which pass through the ends of the clip and through the beam above. The drawings, perhaps, indicate that the plate on the side next to the tooth is flat; but there is nothing in the specification or claim to limit it to that form. Besides denying invention and infringement the appellees answered to the effect, as stated in the opinion of the circuit courtthat the complainant is a combination or trust attempting to hold and use its naked legal title as assignee for purposes contrary to public policy, and that a court of equity ought not to aid its unlawful purposes by entertaining the present bill.

This answer the court sustained, and, though conceding, in deference to prior decisions, the validity of the patent, held it to be limited to "the terms of the specification and claims, and not infringed." (See National Harrow Co. v. Quick, C. D., 1895, 326; 71 O. G., 608; 67 Fed. Rep., 130.)

WOODS, Circuit Judge, after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the Court.

While not prepared, in view of the authorities, to sanction the proposition that the infringer of a patent may escape liability by showing that the legal owner is engaged in a supposed unlawful combination or trust, we do not consider the point. We think the dismissal of the bill justified upon other ground. There is in the record before us proof of many adjudications in different circuit courts whereby the Reed patent was declared valid; but in one instance only (Reed v. Smith, 40 Fed. Rep., 882) has the opinion of the court been reported. Those adjudications, except the first, it is fair to assume, were governed largely by the well-known rule of comity by which one Federal court follows the ruling of another, especially in patent cases, and are therefore

not entitled to the weight of so many independent judgments. In Reed v. Smith, upon a showing of newly-discovered evidence, some of which appears in this record, a rehearing was granted, and the case was disposed of without going to a final decree. The reported opinion, however, is no less valuable on that account, and in some respects it is helpful in the present discussion. Upon a comparison of the claims of the patent as originally made with those allowed the conclusion is there declared, in which we fully concur, that it did not involve invention or anything more than mechanical skill to adapt the adjustment of the rake-teeth shown in the Paddock patent to the teeth of a spring-harrow. While the adoption of this device [it is said] was undoubtedly a happy thought and appears to have been the one thing necessary to insure the popularity and general use of the spring-tooth harrow, we do not think it belongs to that class of conceptions which the law dignifies by the name of "invention,"

and accordingly it was held

that the clip, which lies at the foundation of the plaintiffs' patent, is limited to a curved clip with biting edges, designed to hold the tooth rigidly in its seat.

It is clear, therefore, that Reed, though the specification of his pat ent shows that he would have had it understood differently, was in no sense "a pioneer in the art of adjusting curved teeth longitudinally upon their seats." It was permitted to him finally to claim only an improved form of clip for fastening the teeth in place. Paddock's device showed for that purpose simply a clamping hook located at the middle of a curved and grooved seat; but evidently it was not beyond the powers of ordinary skill and knowledge to devise or adapt or adopt other forms equally effective. In the language of Reed's specification, "other forms will readily suggest themselves." It is not to be said judicially, of course, that in such a field, narrow as it was, invention was impossible; but it is very clear that if there was novelty in this "curved clip with biting edges" it was at most a very slight and formal advance in the art beyond what was known, or was of very easy production. If, for instance, the single hook in the Paddock device, when applied to a harrow, failed to hold the tooth firmly, what was there to do more readily than to employ two hooks at the ends of the seat, either with or without a third one at the middle, and in what respect would the two at the ends have differed mechanically from the ends or edges of the clip in Reed's patent? Plainly such a use of two hooks in lieu of one could not be invention, and it will hardly be said to have been beyond mechanical skill to devise a firm connection between the two hooks, so as to require the use of but one bolt to move them or to hold them in place. An equally obvious expedient was a curved clamp corresponding more or less nearly in length with the seat and in curvature with the tooth to which it was to be applied. Indeed, it is apparent on the evidence before us, which in part is the newlydiscovered evidence for the admission of which the decree in Reed v. Smith was opened, that such a curved clamp, even with biting edges,

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