Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/920

 906- FEDERAL REPORTER. �perîments may have Leen unsuceessfully trîeS, coming very near yet falling short of the desired resuit. They have pro- duced nothing beneficiai. The invention, when perfected, may truly be said to be the culminating point pf many experi- ments, not only of the inventor, but by many others. He may have profited indirectJy by the unsuecessEul experimenta and failures of others, but it gives them no right to claim a sharo of the honor or the profit of the successful inventor." �The testimDny as to the state of the art shows that fence mre and wire fences, and wires for such purposes, composed of two or more strands twisted or laid together, were old at the time these inventera entered the field; also that fences had been, long before Hnnt's invention, armed with spikes, or other sharp projecting points, for the purpose of making them more effective in resisting the encroachments of ani- mais or other intruders. Indeed, the thorn hedges, which have been used almost from time immemorial, are in one sense only a barbed fence, their effectiveness as a barrier arising mainly from the natural thorns or spurs with which the hedge shrubs are armed. It must be conceded, both from the proofs in these cases, and from those common facts within the knowledge and observation of ail intelligent per- Bons, that the idea of furnishing a fence or wall with some kind of sharp spikes or prickers is old. The ordinary picket fence, the device of spikes on area railings to prevent loungers from leaning against them, the placing of broken glass, pottery, or sharp stones or spikes upon the tops of walls, to protect fruit gardens, are well-known illustrations of what we refer to. The most that can be said of these old devices, as applicable to these patents, is that they narrow the field for the exer- cise of inventive faeulty, and limit the range of the patents. �In this connection it is proper to consider briefly the objec- tion that these devices are not patentable from the faot that, in view of what was well known in the same direction, it did not require inventive genius to make anyof the devices involved in these patents, but that only mpchanical skill was requisite to adapt old devices to this newusQ. There is no doubt that a device, in order to be patentable, must be the resuit of ����