Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/395

 TALE LOOK MANUF'g OO. V, NORWICH NAT. BANK. S8S �a time lock, which is a structure necessarily having a dog, which is to be moved by appropriate mechanism, of the time movement, and two adjustable devices, substantially as set forth, The Herzberg patent does not antieipate the seventh claim of the Little invention. Whether it destroys the pat- entable character of the Little invention will be hereafter considered. �But, although the Little device may have been novel in the sense that it was a new improvement, and although it pbs- sessed utility, it is insisted that it was not a patentable im- provement because there was no invention in the thing, and improvement is not necessarily invention; �The Derby patent is first relied upon to show that whil© changes were necessary to transform old time locks which unlocked at predetermined times into structures which shonld also lock at predetermined times, yet that such changes wei:e obvions to the skilled safe lock-maker, and required no inventive power. The prominence which was given to this patent in the proofs and on the trial requires a description of the mechanism. The patentee says, in his specification : "The nature of my invention consists insecuring to the inside of the door a bar or series of bars, or cros-sbars, so arranged as to revolve on une common center, which is fastened in the door in such a way as to permit a handle or knob being attached to it on the outside of the door to latch the bars when the door is closed; also the mode of constructing and operating a spring latching lever by means of a simple elock movement, so that, however ponderons the locking bars may be, the power of an ordinary clock movement will be suffi- cient for the purposes required." The latching lever i& pivoted to the sida of the safe, and keeps the series of cross-bars in locked position. "This lever is shapedlike an inverted V, pivoted at the apex, and with one arm longer than the other. It is pivoted so that the short arm latehes over the top of one of the cross-bars when the latter have been turned into their sockets, and holds it there against its tendency to swing up ont of engagement with the socket. The long arm of the lever projects down just behind a dial, which is revolved by a olook ��� �