the patent is granted. If this view be correct, the grant of such a patent would create no right to the exclusive use of the design upon other articles than the particular one specified.

It is not recalled that there has been any adjudication of the courts upon the validity of a design patent which contains no specification of the class of goods to which the design is applicable; but the doubt thrown upon the question by the above-named decision of the Commissioner of Patents may well be pondered by all who would surrender the particular measure of protection afforded by the trade-mark law, thinking that by so doing they can, under the design law, obtain larger rights at a smaller cost.

The decision of the examiner in the premises is affirmed.

CASE AND BAILLIE.

APPEAL FROM EXAMINERS-IN-CHIEF.

November 28, 1871.

In the matter of the application of H. P. Case and R. P. Baillie for letters patent for an IMPROVED SAFETY-VALVE.

LEGGETT, Commissioner:

The applicants' alleged invention is a safety-valve very closely resembling what is known as the Ashcroft valve.

They claim, however, two points of difference, which they regard as essential and patentable. The first is in the form of the valve-seat and the other a device to prevent the valve from so tilting when open as not to close properly upon the reduction of the steam-pressure.

The improvement claimed in the valve-seat consists merely in the formation of a narrow horizontal shelf or plane next to the steam-chamber and then sloping upward and outward. The Ashcroft valve, patented June 23, 1868, has this arrangement reversed—that is, the sloping portion of the valve-seat is next to the steam-chamber and the horizontal portion outside and above.

The applicants claim that by their arrangement of the valve-seat a greater area of the surface of the valve is immediately acted upon by the lifting force of the steam the instant that the valve is raised at all, thereby causing a quick and free opening. It would probably be very difficult to find a safety-valve that does not do exactly the same thing. The Ashcroft, the Hewett, the Dougherty, and other patents all show an increased surface of the valve exposed to the lifting force of the steam upon the instant of the starting of the valve. I can see no substantial difference between the valve-seats of the Ashcroft and applicants' valves. They seem to be almost exact mechanical equivalents of each other.

The device to cause the valve to drop properly upon its seat without tilting consists in a spiral spring arranged around a spindle between the

valve and an adjustable yoke, and differing from the Ashcroft and other valves referred to by the examiner by being so constructed that the pressure of the spring is transmitted directly from the center of the yoke to the center of the valve at all times, no matter what may be the inequalities of ends of the spring. This important result is secured by the use of two disks or plates, one attached to the lower and the other to the upper end of the spiral spring. The lower disk has a concave lower surface exactly fitting the upper and spherical surface of a collar permanently attached to the spindle just above the valve. The upper disk has a convex or spherical upper surface exactly fitting a concave socket in the adjustable yoke, the spindle moving freely through the upper disk, socket, and yoke. By this arrangement the entire force of the spring is always exerted between the center of the yoke and the center of the valve, thereby preventing tilting or "cocking" of the valve. None of the references show this construction, nor other equivalent device for securing the same result; and, so far as shown by references before me, the device is novel and useful, and the applicants are entitled to a patent for it when they limit their description and claim to their improve

ment.

Upon the application as it now stands the decision of the board of appeals is affirmed.

WILLIAM MOLESWORTH.

APPEAL FROM EXAMINERS-IN-CHIEF.

November 29, 1871.

In the matter of the application of William Molesworth for letters patent for an IMPROVED SYRINGE.

DUNCAN, Acting Commissioner:

Applicant's syringe consists simply of a tube attached to an elastic bulb, no special mode of attachment being described, and the particular mode adopted being immaterial so far as concerns the alleged invention.

In the patent of Matthew Faloon, July 7, 1868, there is also shown a syringe consisting of a tube opening directly, without the intervention of valves, into an elastic bulb. If this patent be not a complete anticipation of the pending application, it is because of the larger size of the tube shown in the later case.

If by a change in this particular a new and useful effect is produced, the change should be protected by a patent. There is no foundation, however, for applicant's assumption that he has been the first to devise a syringe in which the so-called "suction principle" can be employed to withdraw the injected fluid from its place of deposit. Manifestly this can be done by Faloon's syringe also.

Furthermore, as to applicant's claim that his syringe is specially adapted for injecting a large volume of fluid, it is only necessary to say that with a bulb of equal capacity the same quantity of fluid will be discharged from the mouth of the tube in Faloon's instrument as in ap

plicant's, provided that in each instrument both the bulb and the tube be entirely filled before compression. If the bulbs only be filled, then a larger quantity will be discharged by the Faloon instrument. The decision of the examiners-in-chief is affirmed.

FREDERICK HOELTGE vs. CHAS. HOELLER.

Interference.

APPEAL FROM EXAMINERS-IN-CHIEF.

November 29, 1871.

In the matter of the interference between the application of Frederick Hoeltge for a patent for a STOVE-PIPE ELBOW, and the patent granted to Charles Hoeller, 22d September, 1868, and reissued to him and his co-assignee, H. S. Hoeller, 26th April, 1870.

LEGGETT, Commissioner:

Hoeltge's application was filed the 7th November, 1870, and the application upon which Charles Hoeller obtained his original patent was filed the 11th March, 1868. A patent was granted to Hoeller September 22, 1868, and reissued April 26, 1870. The invention of the respective parties is the same, and consists in forming a stove-pipe elbow of one piece of sheet-iron, having its surface of smallest curvature corrugated or ribbed, and the surface of largest curvature smooth.

The testimony clearly shows that Hoeller made the invention and reduced it to practice as early as November, 1867, and that it was after or about this time that Hoeltge commenced experimenting, but reached no satisfactory results until 1868.

Another point equally fatal to Hoeltge is developed in his own testimony. He says that he conversed with Hoeller in March, 1868, and that Hoeller told him he had applied for a patent on the invention. Hoeller obtained his patent in September, 1868, more than two years before Hoeltge filed his application. Hoeltge makes no explanation of his delay. He is informed of the pendency of Hoeller's application within a few days of its filing, yet makes no move toward claiming it himself until more than two and one-half years had expired. Such delay would prove fatal to Hoeltge, even if the respective dates of invention were reversed. The decision of the board of examiners-in-chief must be affirmed, and priority awarded to Hoeller.

W. B. S. TAYLOR.

APPEAL FROM EXAMINERS-IN-CHIEF.

November 29, 1871.

In the matter of the application of W. B. S. Taylor, for letters patent for FLEXIBLE GAS AND OTHER TUBING.

LEGGETT, Commissioner:

The gist of the alleged invention in this case consists in taking flexi

ble gas tubing, internally supported by coiled spring-wire, and removing from the ends of the tube enough of the wire to admit of inserting shank-couplings. This is accomplished either by constructing the tubing without wire at the end, or by cutting off the wire and removing it from the tubing for the distance the shank is to be inserted. amount to invention?

Does this

The tubing to which the alleged invention relates is that in common use with drop-lights. They are usually, when so used, connected with the stand and goose-neck by means of cup-couplings. The applicant claims great superiority for shank-couplings, and argues that the reason they have not been before adopted is because no one has before discovered how they could be inserted in such tubing and make firm and gastight joints.

Shank-couplings are old. Internally-wire-supported tubing is old. It is common to use the shank-coupliug in analogous positions, and to remove the wire from the end of this kind of tubing is an obvious expedient that would be resorted to by any person, whether mechanic or not, who should attempt to use the shank-coupling with such tubing. It requires only the ordinary use of ordinary sense to discover that the wire would be in the way; and the same sense would suggest removing so much of it as was in the way. The ordinary exercise of ordinary common sense cannot be called invention.

I am not prepared to admit the great superiority of the shank-coupling over the cup-coupling for the use designated, and I have no reason whatever to believe the cup-coupling has been used only because no one knew how to use the shank-coupling. The cup-coupling has evidently been used because it was preferred.

The inventor of the coiled wire-tubing should not be prevented by a patent on a simple work-shop expedient, from using it in connection with any well-known and common couplings.

The applicant presents two claims: The first, for the process, and the second, for the thing made, as an article of manufacture. I fail to find patentable matter in either.

The decision of the board of examiners-in-chief is affirmed.

WITHINGTON AND WEST vs. WHITNEY.

Interference.

APPEAL FROM THE EXAMINERS-IN-CHIEF.

November 29, 1871.

In the matter of the interference between the applications of C. B. Withington and E. N. West and J. H. Whitney for patents on GRAINBINDERS.

LEGGETT, Commissioner:

The contest in this case is between Withington and Whitney, West having filed no testimony, and, under the rules, is out of the case.

The invention in controversy is described in the two applications as follows:

Withington's: The method herein described of binding grain or straw by the use of two wires, which produce a double twist on the bundle, and which re-connect automatically for the binding of the next bundle, as specified.

Whitney's: The method herein described of binding grain or straw by means of two wires, the said wires being first united, then passed around the bundles in different directions and again united on the opposite side, substantially as described.

Whitney filed a caveat describing his invention December 21, 1868. Withington filed his application on the 9th of October, 1869.

Withington's invention was passed for issue February 9, 1870, without notice from this Office to Whitney, his caveat having been overlooked. The final fee not having been paid by Withington, on the 7th of March, 1870, West filed his application, and was put in interference with Withington's application. On the 21st of May, 1870, Whitney filed his application, which was also put in interference. Withington had produced a patentable device, capable of producing the band, at the date of his application.

I am unable to find from any of the testimony that Whitney claims to have made the invention prior to the fall of 1867. Chapman, a witness, was informed of the binder by Whitney in August, 1867. Whitney's model, Exhibit A, was made in September, 1867. Exhibit B was made in June, 1868. He filed his caveat December 21, 1868, and in June, 1869, he built an operating machine, and used it in the harvest field in August, 1869, and also exhibited it at the State fair at Rochester, New York, in October, 1869. He built another full-sized machine in January, 1870, and used it in the field, in July, 1870. Withington made the invention as far back as 1865. He says that he applied a perfect-acting slack - wire device to his machine in the winter of 1866 or the spring of 1867; and that it was the same as now attached to the model in the Patent Office.

It may be observed here that both Whitney and Withington had great difficulty in attaching their binding-devices to any reaper then in use, and both were trying to invent or perfect a machine adapted to their binding devices, which alone seems to be the reason why they did not put their devices into more extended use. Some machines seemed to be better adapted to the binding device than others, but none worked to their entire satisfaction.

In the Payne machine the grain was run into the binder by means of an endless apron. Other machines gathered the grain by means of a selfraker. The invention in controversy was intended to bind the gavels into bundles, and not permit them to leave the machine unbound.

The testimony of Guild, Locke, Payne, and others shows beyond a reasonable doubt that the model made by Withington in 1865 was as complete as his model of 1869, and bound and operated successfully. In this model of 1865 Withington bound a pencil for the purpose of showing its practical use. S. D. Locke, an experienced reaper, testifies that he understood the improvement clearly from the 1865 model.