Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/576

 NAT. FEATHEB DU8TEB CO. ». HIBBAED. S61 �The specifications and claims in the two patents are substantially the same, and are for, "as an improved article of manufacture, a feather duster having the stems of the feathers split longitudinally, and a part thereof severed from the remaining part, substantially as specified. " �The patent, it will be seen, is for this new article of manufacture, namely, a feather duster made of split feathers. It is not upon split feathers as such, or upon the proeess of splitting feathers, but upon a combination of the split feathers with the other elements by which a duster is made. The idea of a feather duster, to be made of feathers of the common turkey or other domestic fowls, seems clearly to have originated with George W. Hibbard. The desideratum was to make those feathers pliable. He was seeking to accomplish this when the suggestion was made to him by Mrs. Hibbard to try cutting or splitting them. The proof on the part of Mrs. Hibbard fails to show, indeed it falls far short of showing, that she ever made a feather duster, or thought of making one, from turkey feathers made pliable by splitting them, until after her husband had been for some time at work in that direction. The most the proof does show is that she suggested the mode of making feathers. limber and pliable which were used for the purpose of making the feather dusters described in this patent. The successful feather duster, covered by both these patents, was, it seems to me from the proof, the invention of George W. Hibbard. While he was experimenting — I may say, perhaps, groping — for some method of rendering his feathers pliable, Mrs. Hibbard suggested the experiment of splitting the feathers. He acted upon that suggestion, and finding that the feathers were thereby made pliable, combined them with the other material, and made the feather duster which, before that time, had only had existence in his mind. Although Mrs. Hibbard may have made a valuable suggestion in the progress of the experiment, yet that does not make her the inventer. Agawam Co. v. Jordan, 7 Wall. 602; Pitts v. Hall, 2 Blatchf. 229. �For these reasons, but mainly upon the ground of the estoppel, which I think the most cogent, the bill of the complainant will be sustained, and a decree entered eetting aside the patent issued to Busan M. Hibbard. v.9,no.9— 36 ��� �