Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/534

 620 FEDERAL REPORIBB. �Wheelee, D. J. This suit is brought upon letters patent re-issued No. 8,091, granted to the orators as assignees of the defendants John L. Stevens and George W. Stevens, dated February 19, 1878, for an improvenient in cases for transporting eggs, for wbich original letters patent No. 62,378, dated February 26, 1867, were granted to the assignors. The defences are that the re-issue is for a different in- vention from that in the original patent ; that the patentees were not the original and iirst inventors of this improvement, because it was known to and used by others than either of them before the invention by both or either of them, and because it was invented, if at all by either, by John L. Stevens alone. The invention consists in placing thin strips of the proper width edgewise, crossing each other, and halved together at proper distances, between thin horizontal partitions in a box, making layers of cells to hold each an egg separate from all the others, secure against injury from without the box and from moving the box in transportation, and easy to be packed and un- packed. The vcalls of the box would form one sida of the outer cells if the partitions and strips next parallel to them should be placed the size of a cell from thom, but outer cells so formed are not safe for the eggs. In the original patent the specification and drawings showed cases with outer cells so formed as if for use, while the re- issue is for a case so made and shown, but for only the cells formed irrespective of the walls of the case to hold eggs. �It is argued for the defendants with some force that this difference shows different inventions. The drawings of the original show a case with only two layers of cells, but they show many cells in each layer interior to those of which the sides of the case form one side, and the specification sets forth successive layers of such cells, to be lim- ited only by height of the box. So there were clearly-shown cells and layers of cells formed irrespective of the walls of the case, as well as cells of which the walls formed a part, all of which were more or less safe for the eggs. The interior and most safe ones were a part, at least, of the invention patented, and the patent might, under the statute, well be re-issued and limited to that part. That there were traveling cases, made for carrying samples, containing trays divided by similar partitions into several small compartments, and that boxes for holding chalk-balls, and others for holding perfiimery bottles and medicine bottles, and others for holding small ink bottles, made wi h similar partition strips, and having compartments in two layers, sep- arated by a horizontal partition, before these patentees made this invention, is shown by the eviJeace beyond any fair question or dcubt ; ��� �