Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/103

 WOVEN-WIRE MATTBESS CO. V. WIBE-WEB BBD 00. 89 �be construed to mean the inclined end-bars of the original patent and of.the drawings. �The last point requires an examination into the state of the art at the date of Famham's invention, in order to see what the invention was, and whether the first claim of the re-issue must necessarily be limited to an end-bar of the specifie form which was described in the original patent. Such examination shows that the public already had the combination of the first claim of the re-issue, if the claim is to be literally construed. The five Pohl iron bedstead frames made in Baltimore in 1865 had that general combination. While the oral testimony of the maker, unsupported by the presence of the frames, is insufficient to satisfy me in regard to the existence of minor, and, at the time, comparatively unimportant, details of construction, it is sufiieient to satisfy me in regard to the general plan of the frame, especially as it is inherently probable that such a construction would be made by a person seeking to stretch an elastic fabrio upon the rails of a frame. The Campbell wooden bunk bottom, upon which Judge Blodgett relied in the recent and unreported case of Whittelsey V. Ames, was a rude frame supporting a canvas sheet, the whole structure having similar general charaeteristics to those of the Pohl bedstead. These examples are sufficient to show that the first claim of the re-issue must be limited so as to compel the end rails to be the inclined rails of the original and of the third claim. �But little was said upon the trial in regard to the second claim. It, however, seems to me to be plain that the standard, B, is the longitudinally-adjustable standard, B, as described in both original and re-issue. The defendant's standards are not slotted, and the second and fourth claims are not infringed. �The remaining questions are as to novelty and infringement of the first claim as herein construed, and of the third claim. These claims are said to have been anticipated by the Pohl iron frames. The maker testified that he made in Baltimore, in 1865, five iron frames, in which the end-bars or bows, as he styles them, were from five- eighths of an inch to one and one-fourth inches square, and were inclined towards the bed bottom, making an inclination of about three-sixteenths of an inch. None of the bed bottoms are produced. They probably canuot now be found. The testimony of Mr. Pohl stands alone. His application for a patent does not describe the frames. This evidence is the unsupported oral testimony of a per- son in regard to a minor detail of the way in which a few frames ��� �