The object of the invention set forth in this claim is to simplify the mechanism for imparting motion to the feed-wheel of a button-hole sewing machine. The specification refers to a former patent, No. 183,333, and states that, instead of the jointed lever described in such former patent as a means of transmitting to the feed-wheel the motion of a rotary shaft, the patentee has invented a system of independent levers. A particular description of these levers is given in connection with drawings attached. One of these levers, E, which is pivoted to the frame of the machine and subjected to the action of two toes that project from a rotary shaft, is termed the "operating-lever." When this iever is oscillated by means of the rotating shaft its motion is traus mitted to another lever, D, termed the "intermediate lever." This intermediate lever, when oscillated by the action of the operating-lever, in turn transmits its motion to a sliding feed-dog, by which an intermittent rotary motion is imparted to the feed-wheel.

The words of the claim are as follows:

The sliding feed-dog C, combined with the intermediate lever D, operating-lever E, and with the shaft F, having the toes I and m, substantially as specified. This claim is for a combination of old devices. Friction-feeds as distinguished from ratchet-feeds moved by a rotating shaft have long been employed in sewing-machines. Similar devices to those employed by the plaintiff have often been used to produce similar results. All that is claimed to be new in the plaintiff's invention is the particular combination described in the patent.

In the machines made by the defendant the feed-wheel is made to rotate by the action of a sliding feed-dog, as in the plaintiff's machine. The motion of the feed-dog is effected by the action of a rotating shaft in connection with an operating-lever, as in the plaintiff's machine; but the defendant dispenses with the intermediate lever, which the plaintiff employs. By changing the relative position of the operating-lever and the feed-dog a sliding link is employed to transmit the motion of the operating-lever to the feed-dog instead of au intermediate lever. Here lies the point of the controversy. The plaintiff contends that the sliding link employed by the defendant is in fact a lever, and the intermediate lever of the plaintiff's combination, while the defendant insists that his sliding link is in no sense a lever, but a different thing, the employment of which changes the combination. Upon this question my opinion is in favor of the defendant's contention. I consider it plain that in the defendant's machine there is no lever intermediate the feeddog and the operating-lever. There is a piece intermediate the feeddog and the operating-lever employed to transmit the motion of the operating-lever to the feed-dog, but that piece is not a lever in any sense of the term. It has no fulcrum, and its slight vibratory motion is opposite to the direction in which the end of the lever by which it is operated moves. The plaintiff's expert disposes of this question adversely to the plaintiff when he says (Plaintiff's Record, page 177):

The necessities of the motion of the feed-dog aloue cause the vibration of the piece ou its pivot.

This conclusion that the sliding link of the defendant's machine is not a lever is decisive of the case so far as the patent under consideration is concerned, for there is no evidence on which to found a conclusion that the defendant's sliding link, not being a lever, is nevertheless an equivalent for the plaintiff's intermediate lever. Indeed, reliance upon the doctrine of equivalents was expressly disclaimed at the argu ment, and the case, so far as the patent under consideration is involved, was made to depend upon the question whether the defendant's sliding link is a lever. My determination, therefore, is that the plaintiff has failed to prove infringement of the second claim of the plaintiff's patent of 1877.

The complainant's second patent, No. 219,356, dated September 16, 1879, relates to improvements on the mechanism described in the letters patent which have just been considered and in patent No. 183,333, dated October 17, 1876.

The invention described in this 1879 patent is stated to consist in “a new mechanism for regulating the length of stitch." All the mechanism covered by the second claim of the patent of 1879 is retained, and the necessary change in motion of the feed-wheel from fast to slow is effected by the interposition between and its withdrawal from between the two contact-surfaces of the operating-lever E and the intermediate lever D of one arm of an elbow-lever, J, which is pivoted upon the face of the operating-lever next the face of the intermediate lever. The end of the operating-lever E in contact with the intermediate lever D is stepshaped, and the arm of the elbow-lever is interposed in such a manner that it partly closes or equalizes and fills out the step, whereby the outline of the contact-surface of the operating-lever is changed, and in consequence the vibration of the intermediate lever changed. This interposition and withdrawal of the arm of the elbow-lever is effected by vibrating the elbow-lever upon its pivot. To this end its second arm is by an elastic rod, I, connected to a lever, H, which is caused to swing by means of a pin, t. entering a groove, a, in the feed-wheel.

There are three claims. The first claim is as follows:

1. The combination of the lever E and lever D with the intermediate pivoted elbowlever J, and with mechanism for vibrating the said parts on their respective pivots, substantially as herein shown and described.

The second claim is as follows:

2. The combination of the lever H, elastic rod I, with the pivoted elbow-lever J, and with the levers E and D. and with mechanism Fem, for oscillating the lever E, substantially as herein shown and described.

The third claim is as follows:

3. The lever E, having fixed contact portion i and elbow-lever J, in combination with the lever D, and with the spring-rod I, passing through the elbow-lever J, and with the lever H, grooved wheel B. and actuating shaft F, substantially as herein shown and described.

7891-18

It will be observed that each of these claims is for a combination, one essential element whereof is the intermediate lever D, already noticed in considering the plaintiff's patent of 1877. The conclusion already announced, that the defendant's machine has no intermediate lever, affords one ground, therefore, for holding that such machine does not infringe the patent of 1879, because it omits one element of the com. bination claimed in that patent by which motion is imparted to the feed-dog and substitutes another whereby the same result is accomplished in a manner different from that described in the patent. There are, besides, other grounds to be found in the difference between the mechanism employed by the plaintiff to secure a fast and slow motion of the feed-wheel and the mechanism employed by the defendant to secure the same result. As has been already noticed, the elbow-lever employed by the plaintiff to change the motion of the contact end of the operating-lever is pivoted upon the face of the operating-lever next the face of the intermediate lever and moves in the direction of the contact plane. From this method of construction two difficulties arise. One difficulty, not wholly insignificant, is that the elbow-lever, when so piv oted, is liable to work loose upon its pivot. Another, more important, is that the free arm of the elbow-lever may be moved by the lever H to interpose between the operating and the intermediate lever before those levers have separated sufficiently to permit such interposition, in which case breakage must result, unless provision be made for a yielding of the parts. To obviate this difficulty the plaintiff employs an elastic rod to transmit motion from the lever H to the elbow-lever. This rod, by springing where the contingency suggested arises, avoids breakage. Both the difficulties alluded to are avoided in the defendant's machine. Instead of interposing one arm of an elbow-lever pivoted upon the operating-lever for the purpose of changing the outline of the contact surface of the operating-lever, the defendant employs an elbow-lever, to move a sliding cam upon the operating-lever, which cam, by sliding in the direction in which the part to which it transmits motion moves, changes the outline of the contact end of the operating-lever, and thereby changes the speed of the feed-wheel. By this arrangement the interposing pieces or cam cau be and is kept steady in its slide without danger of working loose, and all danger of any obstacle being presented to its action whenever moved by the lever H is removed. There is, therefore, no need in the defendant's machine of au elastic rod, I, such as is employed in the plaintiff's machine, and this feature, which is an essential element of the plaintiff's combination, is dispensed with.

The court has been pressed to say from au inspection of the defend ant's machine that the connecting-rod employed to transmit motion from the lever H to the elbow-lever is so made as to be elastic; but this cannot be said, especially in view of the fact that there is no necessity requiring the rod to be elastic, and the positive testimony that the rod is not a spring-rod, and does not yield in the direction in which it trans

mits motion. These differences in the action of the two machines which I have thus endeavored to point out are, in my opinion, substantial and sufficient to compel the conclusion that the defendant's arrangement is not a colorable modification in form of the plaintiff's arrangement for regulating the length of stitch, but entitles the defendant's machine to be considered as substantially different from the plaintiff's, and not an infringement upon any of the claims of the patent under consideration. The bill must therefore be dismissed, and with costs.

[United States Circuit Court-Eastern District of Pennsylvania.]

WALLICK v. CANTRELL ET AL.

Decided May 3, 1882.

21 O. G., 1878.

LETTERS PATENT No. 163,825 SUSTAINED.

Letters Patent No. 163,825, for an improvement in apparatus for enameling moldings, sustained.

Mr. Charles Howson for the complainant.

Mr. J. W. Shortledge for the defendants.

BUTLER, J.:

Letters Patent

A very few lines will explain our views of this case. No. 163,825, for an improvement in apparatus for enameling moldings, were issued to the plaintiff, May 25, 1875, containing a single claim, as follows:

An enameling-box divided into two compartments by a slotted partition, and having openings at the end in a line with the slot in the partition, all substantially as and for the purpose set forth.

The bill charges infringement of this patent. The defenses set up and urged at the hearing were, first, that the patent is invalid, and, second, that the defendants have not infringed. The first was based principally on an allegation of prior use. As respects this it is sufficient to say that in our judgment the allegation is not sustained. written review of the testimony would be of no value. A careful examination has satisfied us that its weight is against the defendants, while the burden of proof is on them.

A

The suggested objection to the claim is unfounded. The claim embraces nothing that should not have been included. It covers simply the peculiar enameling-box invented and constructed by the plaintiff and shown by the model.

That the defendants' device infringes the plaintiff's we cannot doubt. It was designed for the same purpose and accomplished it in the same way and substantially by the same means. The mechanical appliances

are virtually undistinguishable, and the mode of operation and the result are identical. Without the expert testimony, which is very positive, this conclusion is fully sustained by inspection of the two boxes and their work.

A decree must be entered accordingly.

[Supreme Court of the United States.]

BRIDGE, BEACH & Co. v. THE EXCELSIOR MANUFACTURING COM

PANY ET AL.

Decided May 8, 1882.

21 O. G., 1955.

LETTERS PATENT No. 180,001 CONSTRUED-STATE OF THE ART-CLAIM RESTRICTED, Letters Patent No. 180,001, for an improvement in cooking-stoves, claiming. "in combination with a stove-oven, a hinged shelf fitted to fall outward and down automatically when the oven door is opened, and to be raised up by closing the oven door, adapted to operate upon it for that purpose," construed, in light of the state of the art, to cover only the specific devices for raising and lowering the hinged shelf, and that as the defendant used a different device for that purpose there was no infringement.

APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri.

Mr. R. H. Parkinson for the appellants.

Mr. S. S. Boyd for the appellees.

Mr. Justice BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the court:

This case arises upon a bill in equity founded upon certain letters patent dated July 18, 1876, and numbered 180,001, granted to one Esek Bussey for an improvement in cooking-stoves. The appellants, as assignees of the patentee, sue the defendants for alleged infringement, and pray an injunction, an account of profits, and an assesment of damages. The defendants filed an answer, denying infringement and alleging the patent to be invalid by reason of certain prior patents and public use of the alleged invention prior to the invention of Bussey. The patent relates to an oven-shelf placed on a level with the bottom of the oven when the door is open, and outside of the oven, to serve as a shelf for pans and other vessels to rest on when drawn out of or shoved into the oven. The claim of the patent is not for the shelf, as that is admitted to be old, but for an automatic device for raising the shelf upright and inclosing it within the door when the latter is closed, and letting it down to a horizontal position when the door is opened. The device is a cam attached to the door, which passes under the edge of the shelf and gradually raises it to a nearly perpendicular position as the door shuts. The