Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 7.djvu/884

 873 FEDSBAIj fiSFORiEB. �gence in embodying bis ideas in a structure, and in perfecting it 80 as to make it of the fewest possible number of pieces and get rid of vertical seams, and enable it to be made cbeaply by machinery. �The evidence on the part of the defendant, as to the Weber structure, is very voluminous. I have examined it with great care, and the resuit is that I am net satisfied from it that the defendant has fulfilled the necessary obligation of showing, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Weber was prior to Heath. In all the testimony for the defendant there is not the fixing of a date, for the Weber invention, by evidence of sueh a character as makes it impossible that such date should not have been earlier than the date of Heath 's invention. The defendant's witnesses testify from abstract memory of dates, or from some associations in their minds, which, on being tested, prove unsubstantial, and not to be relied on. Tt would occupy too much space to discuss the evidence in detail. Some of the salient features will be adverted to. �Weber, the alleged prior inventer, was an employe in the establishment of Creror, Adams & Co., of Chicago, at the time. Mr. J. McGregor Adams, of that firm, was the person who first brought before the court, by an affidavit made by himself, this structure of Weber. The evidence taken as to this structure was taken in consequence of statements made in this affidavit of Mr. Adams. It now tums ont that the statements hazarded from memory in this affidavit of Mr. Adams were very largely erroneous. They placed events earlier than they turned out to be on investigation. They did so as to the time when the flrm of Creror, Adams & Co. was formed, as to the time when the Chicago Eailway Lan- tern Company succeeded it, and as to the time when Weber left bis employ. They were erroneous as to the fact of the making of self-righting spittoons by his firm prior to the mak- ing of the cuspidor in question; as to the fact of the pur- chasing of self-righting cuspidors from his firm by the Pull- man Palace Car Company, the Chicago & Northwestern Eail- road Company, and Mason & Co. ; and as to the witnesses who would corroborate his statement as to the prior invention by ��� �