Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/917

 SMITH V. MEEBIAM. 905 �open, clearly shows ; and one sort of channel formed by the separation of the edges of the folded strip is shown in the drawings; but neither of these cornes up to the description of the re-issued patent. The former does not enable the strip to hug the seam during the process of sewing, for it is made by that process ; the latter appears to be an accident, and forms no part of the re-issue as construed by either party. �The objections taken to the re-issue come to this: that it describes as a new article, to be made for the boot and shoe manufacturers, what the first patent did not fuUy describe, and which by that patent might be entirely made, as to ail its distinctive features, in the very process of sewing, and, therefore, as an article of manufacture was incomplete, for no one could practically make a stay-strip for sale-by ripping out the stitches. �The admitted or uneontradicted state of the art I under- stand to be this : Stripa had been sewed over the seams of boots and shoes by hand, and by sewing machines. In one clasB of work, soft strips had been applied to outward turned seams with a roUing presser-foot, and the effect of the opera- tion was to leave slight grooves or depressions near the edges of the finished and applied strip, which had the useful prop- erty of protecting the stitches, and a central swell over the seam. Grooved or beaded edges of leather strips, where stitches were laid, had been used in harnesses and in ladies' belts, and straps for pocket books, and other articles. One of the pieces of harness produced in evidence looks very much like the plaintiffs' stay-strip. In this state of the art, and of the plaintiffs' patents, I am of opinion that a stay- strip with beaded edges, to protect the stitches, could not be patented as a new article of manufacture, and that a stay- strip with a central recession formed beforehand, to fit or hug the seam, could not be patented by the re-issue. �Bill dismissed. ��� �