Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/580

 DAT ». COMEINATION RUEBBR 00. 573 �protect the edge of the skirt according to its design. This band upon an inside strip of material, which might be itself made water-proof, to protect the edge of the skirt, is what was patented, by whatever name it was or might have been called. In the MacDonald patent her device was, in one place, called a skirt facing or protector, which shows that the names of tbose parts of a dress were not used at ail times with ex- act discrimination. Her protector would, in some sense, be a sort of extra facing. She afterwards disclaimed facings as a part of Jier patent, which might affect the patent and might not, but it would not affect the use of the language employed to express her ideas. Her testimony is understood as mean- ing that the skirt protectors she wore before De Forest's pat- ent were similar to those she afterwards patented. These were made of plain water-proof fabric, gathered into plaits or fluting. Judges Blatchford and Lowell are understood to bave held that the plaiting and fluting are merely modes of finish, and that the real thing she invented was the plain water-proof strip, finished in either of those modes, or any other desired for the purpose of a skirt protector. Such stripa were in existence when De Porest took his patent; he recog- nized them in his patent, and his patent was for an improve- ment upon them, and similar thiugs. His patent, as this case bas been presented, is valid for that improvement, con- sisting of such a band placed upon and fastened to the lower edge of such strips of material on the inside of the skirts of dresses at the bottom, for additional protection. �The evidence shows that the defendant the Combination Eubber Company, of which the defendant Greacen is president, bas made and sold for use strips of water-proof material with exactly this improvement. ,Some of the bands have very shallow creases across them, which some of the witnesses call fluting, as if they were like the fluting of Miss MacDonald's protectors and patent, and made such bands different from those of De Forest. This distinction is without foundation. The fluting of her patent bas an office to perform in giving a hang to the skirt, and must be made by gathering the ma- terial into open folds, as flutinga of such sort are usually ����