Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/460

 PEEKINS V. NASHUA CAHD & GLAZED PAPER 00. 453 �lîshed describing the invention, it is not important that no one has read it. Stead v. Williams, 7 M. & G. 818. If a pier has been placed in the bed of a river, or a pipe under ground, it is conclusively presumed to be known to ail men. �It has beeri intimated that a use in a workshop, where the workmen are pledged to secrecy, may not be a public use. Kendall v. Winsor, 21 How. 322; Charge of Curtis, J., — ; Bevin v. Easthampton Bell Co. 9 Blatch. 50 ; Heath v. Smith, 3 EUis & B. 255. In the last of these cases it is held that if the invention has been worked in the ordinary way, without an injunction of secrecy, the use is public. In MeClurg v. Kingsland, 1 How. 203, it is said by Mr. Justice Baldwin, obiter, that use in a factory is a public use. �A use very trifling in amount, or a publication purely tech- nical, or a single sale, have often been held to deprive an inventer of his patent, without evidence that any one inter- ested to acquire knowledge of the invention had acquired it. Henry v. Prov. Tool Co. 14 Off. Gaz. 855; Eghert v. Lippman, Id. 822; McMillan v. Barclay, 6 Fish. 189; Re Adamson'a Patent, 6 D. G. M. & G. 420 ; Patterson v. Gas-Light Co. 3 App. Cas. 239; Lange v. Gisbome, 31 Beav. 133. �The difference between this case and Manning v. Cape Ann Isinglass Co. is that in that case the inventor, after dissolving his partnership, permitted his partner to continue to use the invention. Neither of the partners used the invention except in their respective factories. The circumstanee makes that case a little stronger, but my opinion was that the use by the firm before they dissolved their partnership vras a public use. Taking these decisions together, I understand the law to be that actual knowledge of the invention need not bave been derived by.any one interested to practice it ; it is enough that any one or more persons, not under a pledge of secrecy, saw the invention practiced, or even might have seen it if thfty had used their opportunities, provided it was in fact practiced in the ordinary way after being completed. And it must be held either that the workmen and visitors we;re a part of the pub- lic, or that they were persons from whom the public might have acquired the art without a breach of trust. ����