Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/891

 MATTHEWS V. CHAMBEBS. 879 �and which, by reasori oi its construction, operates as described, in connection with the neck of the bottle, in cloaing and unelo'sing the bottle. The claim is not to the employment in a bottle of a given mode of operation resulting from any structure of stopper. Such a claim would not be a claim to a process. It would be a claim to a function of mechanism, aside from the structure of such mechanism. It would not be a valid claim. The proper construction of the claim is that it is a claim to the employment, in coinbination with a bottle having the interior of its neck suitably formed to receive such stopper, of a stopper construeted substantially as described." �It was held, therefore, in Matthews v. Shoenberger, that an internai gravitating bottle stopper, consisting of a glass mar- ble working inside the neck of the bottle, precisely after the manner of the glass plug in the Kelly bottle, and seating against a rubber ring in the neck by the upward pressure of the gas in the liquid, is not an infringement of either of the plaintiff's patents. . �It seems to me the construction which Judge Blatchford bas given to the plaintiff's patents is the oflly one consistent with their validity; for, unless limited to the exact construction of the devices they show, I do not see how it is possible to save the patents at ail, in view of the prior state of the art. An internai closing stopper for bottles was by no means a new thing at the time of Albertson's earlier invention. This clearly appears from the patents in evidence, tO a few of which a brief reference will be made. �Thus, Blyth's English patent of 1857 shows an internai stopper for bottles which is inserted through the mouth of the bottle, and is closed against a seat within the bottle by the upward pressure of a helical spring, which is situated be- neath the lower end of a movable vertical stem, which acts beneath the oenter of the closing valve ; and the stopper is opened by outward pressure upon the valve; �The Zouf French patent of 1844 shows a stopper which is inserted through the mouth of the bottle, and which, when inserted, is closed tightly against a seat, wbich is within the ��� �