Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/479

 BUZZELL V. FIPIBLD- 467- �replaced as cheaply and easily. The defendant insists that it was not a patentable improvement to remove such a strip, and sell it as an article of commerce ; or, in other words, that to mould such a strip upon the wheel, or ofif the wlieel, is the same invention. But there is further evidence, though not so full and clear, upon the state of the art. The patentee had, in fact, invented a very good machine for moulding sand- paper, but this he bas neither desoribed nor patented. He gives no directions for moulding the flexible material, except- ing that it is to be moulded to fit the periphery of the wheel. The consequence is that on the one hand, if his patent is good, he covers all moulded strips, however well or ill dode, if they will work, and retains his machine for his own use; and, on the other, if the thing had been done before, how- ever well or ill, bnt so as to be of practioal use, his patent is not good. �Now I am convinced by the evidence that sand-paper had been moulded in a comparatively imperf ect manner, but so as tobe actually applied to and used upon this class of.finishing wheels, with effect, before the time of his discovery. One Basell did thie with a block and mallet, long before well known to shoemi-.kers, and used by them in moulding leather. The patentee has described no better way ; be has merely direoted that the thing should be done. It is, therefore, in my opinion, no answer to Busell's anticipation to say that his strips would never have become articles of commerce. They served the purpose, and would, if now for the first time m^de or used, though not good enough to find a sale, be an infringe- ment of the> ^patent, and they, therefore, iuvalidate it. �Bill dismissed. ��� �