Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/575

 560 FEDERAL REPORTBE. �any conduct on her part insinuated, that the invention was in any degree her own, but allowed these men to invest their money in the procurement of the patent, and Clark pay for the unsold half of the patent, upon the understanding — to which she seems to have been as fully a party as her husband — that he was the inventor of the duster to be covered by the patent. It seems to me that the proof shows that Mrs. Hibbard, in allowing her husband to deal "with Curwin, Sauter, and Clark as the original and first inventor of this devioe, has 80 far conceded or admitted him to be the original inventor thereof as that she should be estopped from now claimingotherwise, and especially claiming that she, and not her husband, was the inventor. If there were no other features in the case, therefore, than the con- duct of Mrs. Hibbard towards the persons with whom her husband dealt, I should think it enough to cancel this patent as against the patent previously issued to him. �But the case is, perhaps, susceptible of solution upon another ground. It appears from the proof that George W. Hibbard, for some time prior to the alleged invention described in his patent, had been engaged in the manufacture of dusters from turkey feathers, by setting them in their natural condition into a handle so as to make a brush or duster; that some little time prior to the tenth of February, 1874, he conceived the idea of making a better duster by softening the stems of turkey feathers and rendering them more pliable, so as to make a feather duster which would supersede or take the place of dusters ihen and theretofore made from ostrich feathers, — his idea being that, if he could make turkey feathers, or the feathers of our common fowls, pliable, he could use them in place of foreign feathers, and make as good, if not a better, duster. He experimented some time in this direction, with chemicals, for the purpose of softening the stem or rib of these feathers, and not succeeding to his satisfac- tion in any of these experiments, was discussing the subject on one occasion with his wife, when she suggested to try cutting or shaving down the stem of the feathers, so as to make them pliable and limber. The suggestion was at once acted upon, and a duster made which proved satisfactory, and the patent issued to his assignees was obtained for this device as the invention of George W. Hibbard. �Mrs. Hibbard's sole claim to the invention covered by her patent, which is the same as that covered by the patent of her husband, is that the suggestion or idea of cutting or trimming these feathers down, 80 as to make them limber, first came from her, and upon this fact she elaimed and obtained the patent in eontroversy. ��� �