Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/702

 STBOBBIDaE ». LINDSAT. 695 �\ �by means of screws. The sunken part of the wooden hopper is glued to the urider side of the cover or top of the mill, and the top is nailed and glued to the sides of the box, �Neither in the "French mill" nor in any other mill shown to be in existence prior to the Strobridge invention, is there to be found the combination described in the first claim of the complainant's re-issued patent, viz. : a coffee-mill having a detachable hopper and grinding shell fonned in a single piece, and suspended in the box by the upper part of the hop- per, or a flange thereon," �Some of the devices entering into this combination, when taken separately and in detail, are old; but this oannot be «uecessfuUy urged against the validity of the patent. Botes V. Coe, 8 Otto, 31 ; WiUiams v. The Borne, W. e 0. R. Co. 15 O. G. 653. �The defendants, however, strenuously insist that in view of -the state of the art, especially as shown by Exhibit Elevated Hopper Mill, and Exhibit French Mill, the former having the hopper and grinding shell in one piece, and the latter show- ing a sunken hopper, it did not require invention to make the structural changes recited in the first claim of the Strobridge re-issued patent ; but to this I cannot give my assent. To me it seems that the complainant bas produced a new and useful mill, differing' substantially from any which preceded it, and evincing the exercise of the inventive faoulty. �A change in the form of a machine or instrument, though slight, if it Works a suecessful resuit, not before accomplished in a similar way in the art to -which it is applied, or in any other, is patentable. Isaacs v. Ahrams, 14 0. G. 861. And the validity of a patent is not determinable by the degree of novelty or invention displayed. The Miller e Peters Mfg. Co. V. Du Brul, 12 0. G. 351. Utility, within the meaning of the patent law, is authoritatively declared to exist "if the combi- nation is new and the machine is capable of being beneficially used for the purpose for which it was designed." Seymowr v. Osbome, 11 Wall. 549. �Applying these principles to the complainant's re-issued patent, why should it not be sustained? His combination is ����