Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 9.djvu/847

 832 FEDERAL REPORTER. �and Eichholtz and the two-way joints — were adopted and are oldei than the date of either the Schroeder or Eichholtz patenta. The idea of the jointed axle of Pattee, by which the rigidity of the cultivator frame is avoided, and eaeh draught animal operates his own plow to a certain extent independent of the other, is older in the art than either of the inventions covered by the complainants' patents. Not that, in either of these preeeding machines, there is shown just the same kind of joint, structurally considered, as that shown in the Pattee patent, or an arched beam-yoke precisely like that of Schroe- der; but the idea and function of Pattee's axle and Schroeder's beam-yoke seem to have been anticipated and worked ont, in prac- tical machines, by the several inventors from whose specifications I have 80 fully quoted. �I, perhaps, should not leave this branch of the case without refer- ring to the evidence touching the Whiteley cultivator, which appears in this record. This cultivator — a model of which is introduced in evidence — was never patented, but the proof shows that it was con- structed and in use in the vicinity of Springfield, Ohio, from 1860 or 1861 up to 1873 or 1874, and the evidence shows that some hun- dreds of them were construoted and put to use in that locality, and that it was a popular and useful machine. It is true there is some dispute in the record as to the precise time in which Whiteley com- pleted and manufactured his machines; but I think the clear pre- ponderance is in favor of the defendants' assumption that these machines were made as early as 1860, and that Whiteley continued the manufacture of them for several years thereafter. This Whiteley machine eertainly embodies the main ideas that are developed — per- haps with more mechanical skUl, but not inventive genius — in the later devices of Pattee and Poling. The time when the Whiteley machines were first made and introduced is fixed by the testimony of the witnesses as during the war, and it is hardly possible that a per- son could be mistaken as to a fact which oceurred during a historical period of such impressive interest as our late civil war. �Arched and jointed beam-yokes, then, being old, and two-way joints being old, the complainants' inventors could have patents only for their special devices and combinations. These patents may be valid as shown. That is, the Schroeder patent may be a valid pat- ent for the combination of the peculiar parts which Schroeder showa in his patent and claims as his peculiar invention — his peculiar arched beam-yoke or evener, his peculiar joint by which he sustaina the plow, may be valid, and the combination of them, to make such ��� �