Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/397

 IALU IjOCK MANUf'g CO. V. NOBWICH NAI. BANK. aSO �both new and useful, in the construction of which alterations had been made in previous structures of which their authors had not apparantly conceived, and the alleged invention re- lalies to mechanism in which advances have been made since its date, the conclusions of witnesseB as to non -invention, if admissible at ail, are to be received with hesitation, because it is, in a large class of cases, difficult for theta to place their minds in the condition of the person who was groping his ■way towards the development of -what is now plain, but was then unknown. Such testimony has not a sufiSciency of power to satisfy the mind that what history indicates did demand thought, and the peculialr' power which is styled "invention," could have been accomplished by the skill of the trained mechanic. �The defendant next insists that the Herzberg gas regulator and the Paine Uluminating cloek and the Cope bee-hive suffi- ciently pointed out and explained the use of chronometric mechanism for automatic looking and unlocking at prede- termined times ; that there was no invention in applying the same mechanism to the door of a safe. �In Tucker v. Spaulding, 13 Wall, 453, an action at law to reoover damages for the infringement of a patent for the use of movable teeth in saws and saw plates, the circuit court had excluded a prior patent of oiie Newton for eutting tongues, grooves, mortises, etc., which patent had cutters of the same general shape and form as the saw teeth of the plaintiflf's patent. The supreme court said: "The court, in rejecting the patent of Newton, seems to have been mainly governed by the use which was claimed for it, and also that no men- tion is made of its adaptability as a saw. But if what it actually did is in its nature the same as sawing, and its structure and action suggested to the mind of an ordinarily skilful mechanic the double use to which it could be adapted without material change, then such adaptation to the new use is not a new invention, and is not patentable." �For the purposes of this case it may be admitted that the opening and closing of a gas-cock, or any other obstruction, is in its nature the same as the dogging and releasing the �v.6,no.4— 25 ��� �