Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/373

 MIIiLEB ». SMITH. 861 �for Buch an invention were granted to the complainants, and they allege in the bill of complaint that the improvement is new, and a useful and original invention, and that the re- spondents have infringed their exclusive right to make, use, and vend the same to others for use. Service was made, the respondents appeared, and in the allegations of the bill were set up three principal defences, as follows : (1) That the complainants are not the original and flrst inventors of the alleged improvement ; (2) that the charge that the respond- ents have infringed the patent is untrue ; (3) that the alleged improvement was in public use, and on sale in the United States, more than two years before their application for a patent. • �They also alleged to the effect that it had been patented or described, in some printed publication, prior to the supposed invention or discovery; -which defence will be considered in connection with the first, that the complainants are not the original and first inventors of the supposed improvement. �Designs, it is admitted, are the proper subject of a patent, and the record in this case shows that the patent is for au alleged new and useful design for jewelry of the varions kinds specified in the description given in the specification. It con- sists of the letters of the alphabet, shown by photographie illustrations, which are of a rustic pattern, ornamented by leaves, the claim being for sleeve buttons, and other jewelry, composed of the letters of the alphabet, and having the de- scribed ornamentation of letters, substantially as given in the description, and shown in the photographie illustration ac- companying the application for a patent. Persons seeking redress for the infringement of such a patent, must, as in the case of a machine patent, allege and prove that they are the original and first inventors of the improvement, and that th& respondents have infringed the same. Beyond doubt, they take that burden in the first place; but, as in the case of pat- ents for other inventions, the letters patent, when introduced in evidence, afPord a prima facie presumption that the first allegation is true, which ie sufficient to entitle the complain- ants to a decree, unless it is overcome by competent proof of ����