Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 5.djvu/821

 TUCKEE V. BUBDITT. 809 �heat, but that the oil or varnish itself is modified and oxi- dized harmouiously with the iron, and thus a better effect is produced than can resuit from varnishing oolored iron. The patent might possibly be construed to include the process last mentioned — that is, a coloring of the iron, and fixing the color by baking the varnish ; but there waa evidence in the leading case, before Mr. Justice Clifford, that a varnish, though net an oil varnish, had been baked upon steel pens, and that a soihe- what similar mode of preserving the color of scythes had been used before the plaintiff made his invention. It is under these circumstancea that the plaintiff has given the construction abdve referrëd to, and has not, as yet, claimed that his combination is used unless both the iron and the varnish are oxidized by the beat. The plaintiff moves for an attachment against the defendants for selling certain butts for hinges, and certain handles for doors and drawers. The articles appear to have been made by P. & P. Corbin, who are under injunction at the plaintiff's suit in the district of Con- necticut. The defence maintain that the articles were care- fully and scrupulously made in sucha mode as not to infringe the patents. There is no doubt that these articles are made and sold in imitation of the plaintiff's bronze, though mucK inferior to it ; but the question is whether the manufacturera have succeeded in avoiding the patent. As to the butts, they insist that they were made by first coloring the iron by beat, then putting on a transparent coach varnish, and hardening it by beat, but not so great a beat as will oxîdize the varnish. As to the handles, the defence is that the bronze color cornes from the varnish alone, which is not a transparent vatnish^ but one containing pigments which assume this color at a lesa beat than will oxidize the iron beneath. This process, if it be the one employed, is admitted in the patent to be old. �I bave read the affidavits with great care, and upon them I am of opinion that it is not proved that the plaintiff's pro- cess is employed in the articles now complained of. If I am mistaken, as it is by no means improbable that I ffifty be> upon ex parte evidence, the final deqrees in the circuit court ����