Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/221

 206 FEDERAL REPORTER. �and so, too, was a bent puncturing wire with another wire so arranged as to form with the puncturing wire a ring on which papers could be transferred from the puncturing wire, and a paper removed or a new one placed on the file within the package. This is shown in the Hauxhurst file, one of defendant's exhibits in the case. This file lacks many of the elements of convenience and utility which are obvi- ously furnished by the complainant's file — First, it is a hanging file ; second, it has only one wire. Papers cannot be so easily looked over, examined, or removed, or new ones inserted, as in the other file. It also lacks the feature of ready removability of parts, so as to admit of close packing for transportation. Yet this, as well as the Billow file, and the Buell and Lilley file-holder, shown in the proof, must be held to limit the scope of the complainant's device. But none of the devices antedating the complainant's patent show a practical duplex paper- holder with a tablet, and arranged with more than one parallel ring composed of puncturing and transfer wires, operating together, as shown by complainant's device. �It seems very evident from the proof that these inventors madean improvement in the art to which their device belongs, which, whUe it may, in, some degree, have been suggested, had net been aceom- plished by any or all their predeoessors ; and that this was a sub- stantial and useful improvement is shown by the number of paper- holders which have been brought before the public since Smith and Shannon's inve?ition, which in all essential particularg seem to em- body their device. The proof shows Bovaeihing over SO devices, em- bodying substantially the Shannon device, which have entered the field since his patent went before the public, showing that the public accepted this form of file-binder, or paper-holder, as now and useful beyond anything of the kind before produced; and the proof shows that a large demand at once sprung up for complainant's device, which has continued, except so far as it has been impaired by inter- fering devices. I therefore conclude that this patent cannot be held void for want of novelty. �Upon the question of infringement there can be no doubt but that defendant's paper-holder contains the same essential elements which have made the complainant's holder a success. The puncturing and transfer wires are so arranged as to form parallel rings. The trans- fer wires are so joined as to be, for all substantial purposes, the same as those of the complainant. Their mode of operation and effect, their function in the organism, are the same in both devices. �The defendant insists that by the terms of the complainant's pat- ��� �