Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/732

 720 PEDEBAL EEPOETBB» �So it will operate and produce its results as a presser-foot, though not ail the results, when the grooves have been made in the stay-strip before it is sewed. �The re-issue, then, was granted in order to enable the pat- entee to claim the aotual operations of his tool in detail, which is a perfectly legitimate reason for a re-issue, until the law is changed by congress or the supreme court. �One great dispute of faet is whether the invention was, in faetj new. One Turner swears that he made a presser-foot of the same sort seven years earlier. Turner wasemployed by the plaintiffs to sell their presser-foot, and, wbile ;so em- plbyed, tried to undersell them with one of his own. For this fraud he was discharged, and went into the employ of the defendants, and procured a patent on his presser-foot. How this came to be granted, without an interference, I am not informed. The invention appears to me to be, in substance, identical with that of the plaintiff. However, Turner says that this was a revival of a presser-foot which he had made years before, and there is some testimony to support him. It is open to the criticism so often made upon such remembered inventions, which never went into general use. Against it, the plaintiffs bring strong negative evidence of many persons who must have seen and used the thing if it existed. They go further, and bring thirty witnesses to impeach the charac- ter of Turner for truth ; and two who swear that he tried to bribe them to remember his presser-foot. None of the evi- dence to oharacter is met, or attempted to be met, excepting by the testimony of one of the defendants. It is not made out, to my satisfaction, that Turner made his presser-foot before Sutherland made his. �The respondents insist that Turner's presser-foot, whenever it may have been invented,. differs essentially from that of Sutherland, in that it has its central recession or depression much deeper than those upon the sides, so that it will fit much better the ordinary shape of an outward turned seam, This argument is used both as to nbvelty and as to infringement. I find, however, as matter of fact, that Sutherland's foot ia ��� �