between the front sight and the rear sight, or between them and the gun, except through the mediation of the marksman, yet truly the elements are brought into one organization and there contribute to a new and useful result. Between the strings and the chin-rest of a violin, the hand-rest of a mandolin, the finger-rest of a banjo, there is no connection except through the player. But it is possible that invention was required to produce the new organizations that made better playing possible. So with the banding-wheel for china decoration, wherein a revolving disk holds the china plate and a fixed rest supports the decorator's hand. So, too, with the lathe and toolrest. In Union Edge Setter Co. v. Keith (C. D., 1891, 340; 50 O. G., 285; 139 U. S., 530; 11 Sup. Ct., 621; 35 L. Ed., 261) the combination of a burnishing-machine and a finger-rest was found to be unpatentable, not in law, but in fact, by reason of the prior art. In the Selden automobile patent (Columbia Motor Car Co. v. Duerr & Co., 184 Fed. Rep., 893; 107 C. C. A., 215) the power of a gasengine is applied to the rear wheels of the vehicle through a clutch and reducing-gears, and the separate power of the operator is applied to the front wheels through a steering-wheel and column. Though there can be no coöperation between the driving mechanism and the steering mechanism except through the hands of the driver no one questioned that the association of elements constituted a true combination.

(3) Our conclusion is that the statute should not be narrowed to exclude improvements of the kind we have illustrated from the past, and that an affirmative answer to our question should be recorded.

As neither ground of demurrer is sustainable, the decree is reversed, and the cause remanded for further proceedings.

[U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals-Second Circuit.]

GENERAL ELECTRIC Co. et al. v. STEINBERGER.

Decided April 7, 1914.

206 O. G., 1161; 214 Fed. Rep., 781.

PATENTS-PERSON ENTITLED TO PATENT-DISK STRAIN-INSULATOR.

The disk strain-insulator having rain-shedding annular corrugations covered by the claims put in interference in the Patent Office between Hewlett and Steinberger, Held to have been independently invented by Hewlett, who, as the inventor first reducing the invention to practice by filing his application, is entitled to the patent therefor.

APPEAL from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of New York.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE.

This cause comes here upon appeal from a decree of the District Court, Eastern District of New York. The suit was brought under section 4915, Revised Statutes of the United States, (U. S. Comp. St., 1901, p. 3992,) praying that a patent be issued to complainant for the device covered by claims 9, 10 and 11 of United States Letters Patent No. 904,370 for a disk strain-insulator, granted November 17, 1908, to defendant, Steinberger. The district court decreed that Hewlett was the first inventor and entitled to a patent. The General Electric Company is the assigneee of Hewlett. The opinion of the district judge will be found in 208 Fed. Rep., 699. Affirmed.

Mr. C. H. Wilson for the appellant.

Mr. Charles Neave for the appellees.

Before LACOMBE, COXE, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

LACOMBE, Cir. J.:

The facts are very fully set forth in Judge Chatfield's opinion, which may be referred to for any not here recited. A disk strain

insulator, as its name implies, is a disk of insulating material, mounted so that the line of its axis is substantially horizontal. To it from one side comes a current-carrying wire; a similar one leads from it on the other side. These two wires are insulated from each other by a mass of insulating material in the body of the disk; in service the current is carried around the insulator by a shuntwire. The current is powerful, the wires heavy, and the device must be strong; it is thickened about the axis. Generally a plurality of these insulators are coupled together in a series. The general appearance of the disk suggests a pulley with bosses at the axis and various projections from it, which will be referred to later on. A good idea of the structures may be formed from inspection of Figures 4, 5, and 6 of Hewlett's application, here reproduced. Figures from the drawings of Steinberger's patent will appear later on.

The three claims of Steinberger read as follows:

9. A disk strain-insulator, comprising suspension members, a mass of insulating material partially enveloping the same, said mass being provided centrally with a disk integral therewith and lying substantially in the general equatorial plane of said mass, and further provided with flanges extending in opposite directions from said equatorial plane.

10. A disk strain-insulator, comprising suspension members, a mass of insulating material partially enveloping the same and having a disk portion, said disk portion being provided with annular collars extending in opposite directions and in the general direction of said suspension members.

11. A disk strain-insulator, comprising strain members, a body of insulating material partially enveloping the same and having a comparatively large disk, said disk being provided with collars integral therewith and extending in opposite directions.

There is a constant tendency of the current to leave the main wire where it runs into insulation and to creep around the outside and over the edge of the disk till it reaches the wire on the other side. It is the object of the invention to control this tendency. One way to do this is to lengthen the path along which the current undertakes to creep. This may be done by enlarging the diameter of the disk. It may also be accomplished by corrugating the surface of the disk, for the creeping current always moves on the surface of the disk, and if it has a succession of protuberances to march over its journey may be materially lengthened. When the disk is wet-these insulators, of course, are exposed on the line to atmospheric conditions-it is much easier for the current to creep along it. To meet that difficulty the device is arranged so that the protuberances from the disk will not only increase the length of the pathway, but will serve as hoods or covers to parts of the surface, so that whether rain falls perpendicularly, or is blown in against the disk from one side or the other, there will always be some part of the surface kept free from moisture; the protuberances act as baffle-boards, and, with the disk form channels through which the water runs to the edge of the disk and falls off.

It seems not to be controverted that the application of Hewlett and the patent of Steinberger cover the same invention. Hewlett was first in the Patent Office, filing application on April 20, 1907. Steinberger's application was filed January 20, 1908. Since it illustrated and described the invention disclosed in Hewlett's application, an interference should have been declared. But the Office overlooked Hewlett, and by inadvertence issued the Steinberger patent on November 17, 1908. Having subsequently discovered its error, the Office declared interference between Hewlett and the three above-quoted claims of Steinberger's patent. Upon the hearing of the interference Steinberger took testimony to show that he conceived the invention and made sketches about March or April, 1904. He did not, however, reduce his invention to practice until he filed his application. We

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think this did not disclose such reasonable dilgence as would entitle him to priority over Hewlett, whose application was filed nine months earlier. As we understand the record all the tribunals which have considered the question reached the same conclusion.

Steinberger further showed that in October, 1905, he wrote to an engineer named Buck disclosing an insulator and inclosing a sketch of the same. This he alleged embodied the invention in interference, and he contended that Buck had communicated it to Hewlett. Hewlett's attorney, being of the opinion that Steinberger's letter and sketch did not embody the invention, took no testimony on behalf of Hewlett. The Examiner of Interferences held that the letter and sketch were not a disclosure of the invention and awarded priority to Hewlett. On appeal the Board of Examiners-in-Chief affirmed this decision. The next appeal was to the Commissioner of Patents, who held that there had been a disclosure to Buck, and that upon the record as it stood it was to be inferred that Buck had commuunicated such disclosure to Hewlett. The latter then appealed to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which affirmed the Commissioner of Patents. Thereupon this suit was begun with the result above set forth..

This suit is in no sense an appeal from the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia; there is testimony in this record which was not before that tribunal. Nevertheless its decision on a question of fact is entitled to great consideration. As the Supreme Court said in Morgan v. Daniels, (C. D., 1894, 285; 67 O. G., 811; 153 U. S., 120; 14 Sup. Ct., 772; 38 L. Ed., 657,) it will be accepted

unless the contrary is established by testimony which in character and amount carries thorough conviction.

Before discussing the question whether or not there is such testimony in this case, a preliminary matter may be first disposed of.

In 1905 and 1906 Buck and Hewlett were working together to devise a system of suspension for high-tension wires for which they filed a joint application on February 15, 1906. It covered not only the system, but also this insulator. Since each of the two had contributed something to the invention of this system, there seems to us nothing mysterious or suspicious about the filing of this joint application. Shortly thereafter, when the attorney's attention was called to the fact that the insulator might have a broader application than in that particular system, and that Hewlett believed himself to be the sole inventor of the disk insulator, and that Buck did not dispute this, the claims for insulator were canceled out of the joint application, and a sole application for them was filed by Hewlett. In this we find no reason sufficient for denying the relief prayed for. It is unnecessary to discuss Hewlett's narrative of the various steps

in his invention, or the testimony as to the alleged knowledge of Steinberger's 1905 disclosure. Both Buck and Hewlett testify that the contents of the letter and sketch were never communicated to the latter. In our opinion it would make no difference if Steinberger had sent them to Hewlett, instead of to Buck. The only real question in the case is whether the sketch disclosed the subject matter of the invention in interference.

The letter of Steinberger of October 7, 1905, is in answer to one of Buck in reference to the manufacture of a disk of the particular insulating material (electrose) which Steinberger was handling. It tells of making a disk of fourteen inches diameter and incloses a sketch marked No. 2 of which it says:

Please note that we have indicated the surface of the disk as being corrugated. Our object for corrugating the planes of the disk is to provide additional surface, without increasing the diameter of the disk, thereby providing for surface leakage (of electricity) and enabling you to impress a greater voltage than you could do on a disk with plane surfaces.

We here reproduce, side by side, the drawing of the disk in Steinberger's patent hereinafter referred to as Type B-and the sketch of October, 1905, enlarged as in defendant's brief and hereinafter referred to as Type A.

As was pointed out above, there are two methods for preventing the disastrous effects of creeping. The first is merely to lengthen the path to be crept over, the second is to make that lengthened path more difficult to travel by keeping parts of it substantially dry in all weather conditions. Inspection of the drawing of Type B shows that the projections which lengthen the path are so arranged as to secure this latter advantage. It is equally apparent that the pro