[United States Circuit Court-Southern District of New York.] WOOSTER v. BLAKE ET AL. Decided April 27, 1881. 22 O. G., 1132. 1. REISSUES Nos. 6,565 AND 6,566 HELD TO BE INFRINGED BY THE "JOHNSON" AND "TOOF" RUFFLERS. Reissued letters patent to George H. Wooster for improvements in machines for making ruffles, No. 6,565, dated July 27, 1875, of original letters patent to John A. Pipo, No. 37,550, dated January 27, 1863, and No. 6,566, dated July 27, 1875, of original letters patent to Thomas Robjohn, No. 46,424, dated February 14, 1865, Held to be infringed by the “Johnson” and “Toof” rufflers. 2. CLAIMS 8 AND 9 of Reissue No. 6,566 SUSTAINED. Claims 8 and 9 of Reissue No. 6,566 are not anticipated by letters patent to George B. Arnold, No. 28, 139, dated May 8, 1860. 3. INVENTION. An invention consists primarily in finding out what mechanical operation is necessary to produce the practical result arrived at. Mr. Frederick H. Betts for the plaintiff. Mr. Benjamin F. Lee for the defendants. BLATCHFORD, J.: This suit is brought on two patents. One is Reissue No. 6,565, granted to George H. Wooster, July 27, 1875, for an improvement in machines for making ruffles, the original patent having been granted to Pipo and Sherwood, January 27, 1863, on the invention of John A. Pipo. Only four claims of the patent, of which there are thirteen, are involved in this suit. Those claims are claims 1, 7, 8, and 10, and are as follows: 1. In a ruffling mechanism, a spring or flexible blade, having its acting edge turned or bent toward the surface against which it acts to form the ruffle, in combination with a carrier, to which the blade is rigidly attached, substantially as described. 7. The combination, with the actuating-lever and ruffling-blade, of a regulating device to regulate the extent of backward movement of the blade without affecting the position to which the forward end of the blade moves, for the purpose set forth. 8. In a ruffling or plating mechanism, a spring or flexible blade rigidly affixed to its carrier, in combination with a surface opposed to the blade, and adapted to sustain the material being ruffled against the action of the blade, substantially as described. 10. In a ruffling mechanism, the combination, with a blade and rocking lever, of a vibrating member of the needle-actuating mechanism adapted to rock the lever and move the blade to form a ruffle, substantially as described. The specification says: This invention relates to a mechanism for forming ruffles or plaiting fabrics; and consists in the combination, in a ruffling mechanism, of a flexible ruffling-blade, and with such blade is combined a guide adapted to guide the material to which the ruffle is to be attached, and also other parts or devices, substantially as hereinafter described, to form a ruffle to be connected by a series of stitches. The drawings represent the improvement as attached to a Wheeler & Wilson sewing machine. The specification says: 1 is the bed-plate, upon which in an ordinary sewing-machine the work is usually laid to be sewed. 2 is the presser by which the work is kept down to its place. 3 is the needle. 4 is a lower, and 5 is an upper, guide, through which strips of cloth, between which the ruffling is to be sewed, are passed. 6 is a tube which guides the strip of cloth of which the ruffling is formed. This tube is flat like the others, and with a proper internal width to receive and guide the cloth intended to be used. It is open on the top, near the end toward t} › needle, to receive blade 7, by which the ruffling is formed, so as to allow said blade to work directly upon the cloth. This blade is a spring, or is made flexible, and is provided at the end next the needle with points, or a roughened surface or sharp edge, which will take hold of the cloth to be ruffled, and move it forward upon the smooth surface to which it is opposed, and its acting edge is preferably turned or bent toward the surface against which it acts to form the material between it and the surface into a ruffle. This blade is adjustably attached to bar 8, actuated by the rocking or elbow lever 9, hung to a support or pendant connected with the bed-plate of the machine. This lever 9fs vibrated on its axis 10 by means of the vibrating member or rod 11, connected with and operating the needle and its carrier, which rises against the horizontal portion of the lever and causes it to move the blade forward, and form the cloth ou which it bears into a ruffle. The movement of the blade back from the needle is regulated by means of a set-screw, 12, which restricts the return of the lever and blade. The bar 8 and consequently the lever 9 are drawn back from each forward vibration by a spiral spring. 13, which is attached at one end to this bar, and at the other end to the bed of the machine; and the end of the blade may be made to terminate at a greater or less distance from its carrying-bar by means of a slot and set-screw. The operation of the lever is to press the spring-blade on the goods when advancing to form the ruffling, while it is rocked or lifted from the goods during its retreating movement, and the pressure of the blade on the material is thereby diminished or removed. The strip of cloth to be ruffled is passed under the blade and between it and the presser, and the plain or band material is led through guide 5, when the plain piece is to rest on top of the ruffled strip and under the presser, where, as the material is ruffled and sewed, it is carried forward by the feeding mechanisın, such as is usually employed for the purpose, and in the ordinary manner. The edge or edges of the cloth to or between which the ruffling is to be sewed is or are folded in by the guides, as before stated, and the strips used are fed or moved forward in the same manner that other fabrics are moved on the same machine. The ruffle is formed by blade 7, which is made to reciprocate at each stroke of the needle a suthcient distance over and above the support or surface adapted to sustain the material to be ruffled against the action of the blade to form a ruffle, having folds or plaits of the size desired, the size of the fold to form various grades of ruffling being determined by the means already described. * I am aware that a rough-surfaced feeder and ruffler have been employed to engage a piece of material to be ruffled, forming the gather in and moving the ruffled piece forward, the ruffler and feeder both engaging the ruffled strip, and, in connection with such mechanism, a separator has been employed to separate a band from the ruffled strip, the band being laid ou the surface of the ruffled strip engaged on its under side by the ruler and feeder made as four-motioned feeding devices; and I am also aware of United States Patent No. 14,475. The defendants' rufflers are called the "Toof" ruffler and the "Johnson" ruffler, and are sold by them, to be attached to sewing-machines, for ruffling purposes. The Crosby and Kellogg tape-trimming patent of August 5, 1862, does not show anything to anticipate No. 6,565. It had flexible blades, but they did not press, in working, on the table or surface which supported the goods, nor were their acting edges turned or bent toward the surface against which they acted. The Crosby and Kellogg ruffler patent of December 2, 1862, does not show a flexible ruffler, and the raffler is hinged to its carrier. The suggestion in the specification of that patent that the crimper may be a spring gives no details of construction and cannot take an earlier date than the oath to the specification, June 21, 1862. Pipo's invention preceded that date. The Arnold patent of May 8, 1860, does not show anything that is in No. 6565, nor does the Fuller and Goodall patent of June 5, 1860. The evidence of Kellogg, Manville, and Wilmot shows nothing but abandoned experiments. The crimpers tried by the Elm City Company were all of them hinged to their carriers. The Cary and Homan machine is not established with accuracy as prior to Pipo. Cary does not go back with certainty of the spring of 1862, and Homans has no books or written evidence, but really relies solely on abstract memory. There is nothing in anything he states as to events which makes it necessary that the date he assigns for the machine should be correct. Claim of No. 6,565 has three elements in it: (1) a spring or flexible blade, (2) the acting edge of the blade turned or bent toward the sur face against which it acts, (3) the blade rigidly attached to its carrier. It is not necessary in claim 1 that the carrier should cause the pressure of the spring to increase in advancing and decrease in retreating. The spring-blade has a springy action in respect to goods transversely as well as lengthwise. That transverse springy feature is in claim 1, and is in the defendant's rufflers. So, too, the longitudinal springy action enables the blade to follow, in moving forward, the plane of the opposing surface. The blades in the defendant's rufflers are springy lengthwise, and such lengthwise springiness is availed of by the defendants, and enables the edge of the blade, as it advances, to be certainly pressed on the cloth-plate by the action of the presser-foot and the cloth-plate, whatever be the motion of the carrier. In regard to claim 1 and other features in the patent much is said in the evidence on the part of the defendants as to the obvious character of this or that arrangement, and that any mechanic would know enough to do this or that. This is the of repeated story in belittling inven tion. The invention consists primarily in finding out what mechanical operation is necessary to produce the practical result arrived at. When such operation is hit upon the mechanical work is easy. It is easy when the mechanical operation is seen to say that it was obvious that certain mechanical arrangements would effect it; but mechanical arrangements are tried and tried in vain to reach a practical result, be cause the mechanical operation which is to effect such result is not yet seen. In looking at the completed thing the mechanical operation is there, but the inventor, though he knew all about cams and levers and other mechanical arrangements, did not have in advance before him the coveted mechanical operation. In answer to the suggestion that the defendants' rufflers would work as well in use if the blade were hinged the carrier, it is sufficient to say that it is not so made. The three forms of the defendants' ruffler all of them infringe claim 1 of No. 6,565. For the same reason they infringe claim 8. I am also of the opinion from the evidence that they infringe claims 7 and 10. There is no evidence that anything is found in the Reissue No. 6,565 which is not to be found in the description or drawing of the original patent or in the model accompanying the application for that patent. The second patent sued on herein is Reissue No. 6,566, granted to the plaintiff, July 27, 1875, for an improvement in sewing machines for making band-ruffling, the original patent having been granted to E. C. Wooster, on the invention of Thomas Robjohn, February 14, 1865. There are eighteen claims in the reissue, but only claims 8 and 9 are involved in this suit. They are as follows: 8. The combination of a ruffling or plaiting blade or knife, arranged and operated above the cloth-plate, with a supporting or secondary plate, separate from the clothplate, between which and the blade or knife the fabric to be ruffled is held and ådvanced by the blade, substantially as described. 9. A plaiting or ruffling blade, arranged above the cloth-plate of a sewing-machine, and adapted to operate upon a surface other than such cloth-plate, whereby a strip of goods can be plaited or ruffled above a plain piece, substantially as described. It is plain that the defendants' three forms of ruffler infringe claims 8 and 9. Those claims are not anticipated by anything shown in the Arnold patent of May 8, 1860, or by máchines having a separatorplate such as is shown in the model filed with the application for the Arnold patent. Arnold had no ruffling-blade operating above the cloth-plate. What is contended for is that it required no invention to pass from Arnold to Robjohn. The evidence shows the contrary. The results following the change are very marked, and give to the change the character of invention as distinguished from ordinary skill. There is nothing else in the evidence which is an anticipation of Robjohn. Many suggestions were made in argument on the part of the defendants which have been considered, though not now adverted to, as none of them control the salient points on which the decision is rested. There must be the proper decree for the plaintiff in accordance with the foregoing views, and a like decree in the suit against Handy and in the suit against Thornton. [United States Circuit Court-Southern District of New York.] Decided October 7, 1881. 22 O. G., 1134. LETTERS PATENT No. 219,462, Sustained. Letters Patent No. 219,462, dated September 9, 1879, for an improvement im head-coverings, sustained. Mr. S. J. Gordon for the plaintiffs. Mr. J. H. Goodman for the defendants. BLATCHFORD, J.: This suit is brought on letters patent granted to Robert Gray, September 9, 1879, for an improvement in head-coverings. The specification, which is accompanied by and refers to a drawing, which represents a sectional side view of a hat embodying the invention, says: This invention relates to the manufacture of hats, bonnets, or other head-coverings with a top layer of flock. Hats of this description have been made by applying the flock to a buckram support, but have invariably been stiff, owing to the fact that in order to give the article the required body or strength it was necessary to use a heavy or thick piece of buckOne objection to this hat is the stiffness referred to, it being desirable in some cases to furnish a soft hat, and another the visibility of the buckram tending to defeat the object of the flock layer, which is to produce a felt-like article. ram. My invention is a head-covering consisting of a support of buckram or the like, a top layer of flock, and a canton-flannel or other similar lining, whereby the article is rendered capable of taking a soft finish, while both surfaces thereof have the appearance or semblance of felt—one of plain felt and the other of napped felt. In the drawing, the letter A designates the support; B, the flock layer, and C the canton-flannel or other similar lining. In carrying out my invention I first cement the lining C to a piece of buckram or like fabric by a suitable adhesive substance, with the nap of the lining exposed, and then press the two together, in any usual or suitable manner, to the desired shape.. In lieu of canton-flannel, the fabric known as "glove-lining" may be used. I now apply to the buckram a layer of cotton, wool, or other flock, this process consisting in coating the buckram with an adhesive substance and strewing the flock thereon in finely-powdered form. The article is then in a state for trimming. The buckram A supports both the flock layer B and the lining C, and, being re-enforced by the lining, a light or thin piece of such material may be used, rendering the article pliable or soft, substantially like soft felt. The appearance of the article, moreover, is felt-like, inasmuch as the lining has the semblance of napped felt, and the flock layer that of plain felt. The claim is as follows: A head-covering consisting of a support of buckram or the like, a top layer of flock, and a canton-flannel or other similar lining, substantially as and for the purpose described. The only defense is want of novelty. It is plain that the hat of the patent must be a hat made by pressing the materials into the shape of |