Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/525

 510 FEDERAL REPORTER. �have been before the United States circuit court for the eastern dis- trict of Pennsylvania in Lorillard v. McDowell, 110. G. 640, where it was held, on a motion for a preliminary injunction, by McKennan J., that the reissue was supported by the original, and was not void either for want of invention or novelty; and in Lorillard v. Ridgway, 16 0. Gr. 123, where it was held on final hearing, in riew of the defences there interposed, by the same judge, that there was a laek of patentable invention and novelty. The question as to the reissue was the same there that it is here. The decision upon it in the former case was not disturbed by the change of opinion in the latter, and that decision is a sufficient authority for holding the same way here ; and, besides, the reasoning upon which that conclusion was reached is fully concurred in, The same respect would be paid to the decision in the latter case upon the other questions if it had been made upon the same evidence, and it bas not been claimed or urged in argument but what that case should be followed, unless this case is substan- tially different. The invention is of a mode of marking and identify- ing each separate plug of tobacco as being of a partie ular quality, origin, or manufacture, by tin labels, or tags, having the desired in- scription upon them, and prongs extending backwards from their edges, pressed into the plugs in the last processes of manufacture, with their faces even with the surface of the plugs, where they would be held by the prongs and the surrounding tobacco. Among the things in evidence in that case as anticipations were English letters patent No. 1,516, dated April 30, 1874-, granted to Gibson, Kennedy & Prior for an improvement in the manufacture of tobacco, and apparatus employed therein, the specifications of which were filed in the great-seal patent-office, October 27, 1874, which was before Sied- 1er was then shown to have made his invention, and in those specifi- cations was described as placing in each plug of tobacco, in the pro- cess of finishing at the surface, "a thin metal plate bearing the manufacturer's name, abode, trade-mark, or mark of quality." Now, Siedler's invention is shown to have been prior to the filing of that specification. This removes that patent from among the anticipa- tions to be considered, DeFlorez v. Raynolds, 17 Blatchf. 436. This point is not disputed in behalf of the defendants. The use of these plates, or disk, was the most like Siedler's method of anything shown in that case. In view of that use it was well said that it was "difS- cult to see how the mere attachment of prongs to a flat disk, which had been used before, would involve a patentable exercise of invent- iveness." Thiit use being removed, the question is now materialJy ��� �