Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/658

 eee ���TEDBBAIi BiFOBTBB. ���deseribed." The claim ia to mechanism, to a physîeal struc- turei to the combination of a bottle which bas a neck, and has' the interior of its neck suitably f otmed to receive the stopper, with à stopper constructed as stated in the claim. This means a stopper constructed as described, and which, by reaëon of its construction, operates as described, in connec- tion with the neck of the bottle, in closing and unclosing the bottle. The claim is not to the employment in a bottle of a given mode of operation, resulting from any structure of -stop- per. Such a elaim would not be a claim to a proeess; it would be a claim to a function of mechanism aside from the structure of such mechanism. It would not be a valid claim. The proper construction of the claim is that it is a claim to ^he employment, in combination with a bottle having the jnterior of its neck suitably formed to receive such stopper, of a stopper constructed substantially as described. Of course, a stopper constructed as described will, in combination with a bottle so arranged, operate in a definite way, — in the way described in closing and unclosing the bottle. The elaim, then, is, in effect, one to the structure of the stopper, so far as its parts are brought into use in the closing and unclosing of the bottle. �In Codd No. 2 the stopper is a stopper of a different structure from the plaintiff's stopper, and it does not bave the features of construction or operation which the specification of No. 44,684 states to be, or which are, the characteristio features of the plaintiff's stopper, so far as those features are not also characteristio of the stopper shown in the Albertson patent of August 26, 1862. In Codd No. 2 the stopper cannot be inserted through the neck of the bottle, and is not of a length exceeding the diameter of the bottle, or receptacle in which it is placed; although it can be brought in close contact with a suitable bearing surface or seat on the interior of the neck of the bottle to close it, and be depressed or pushed down into the bottle to open it, and although any tendency to force it out only tightens the joint between the stopper and the seat. These features ail of them existed in the patent of August 26, 1862, in reference to the stopper there ����