a stipulation in writing, the case was tried by the court. The bill of exceptions, which embodies all the evidence, does not show any exception by either party to the admission of evidence, and concludes: "This was all the evidence offered by either party, and thereupon the court found the issues for the plaintiff. A judgment was entered for plaintiff, and a motion in writing for new trial was overruled, to which defendant excepted.

99

H. Spencer, for plaintiff in error. T. C. Mather, for defendant in error. Mr. Justice HARLAN, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court:

1. There is no special finding of facts, and the general finding of the issues for the plaintiff is not open to review by this court. Town of Martinton v. Fairbanks, 112 U. S. 670; S. C. ante, 321.

(113 U. S. 268)

2. The questions discussed by counsel for the defendant as to the legal authority of the town to issue the bonds referred to, fairly arise upon the first count of the declaration. But their determination cannot affect the judgment, for the common counts are sufficient under the statutes of Illinois to support the judgment, without reference to any question of the legal authority to issue the bonds described in the first count. Rev. St. Ill. 1870, c. 110, § 58; Bond v. Dustin, 112 U. S. 604; S. C. ante, 296. Judginent affirmed.

COON and another v. WILSON.1

(January 26, 1885.)

1. PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS-REISSUE No. 8,169-VALIDITY.

Reissued letters patent No. 8, 169, granted to Washington Wilson, as inventor, April 9, 1878, on an application therefor filed March 11, 1878, for an "improvement in collars," (the original patent, No. 197,807, having been granted to him December 4, 1877,) are invalid as to claims 1 and 4.

2. SAME-INFRINGEMENT.

The original patent described and claimed only a collar with short or sectional bands; that is, a band along the lower edge of the collar, made in parts or sections, and having a graduated curve. The reissued patent, and claims 1 and 4 thereof, were so framed as to cover a continuous band, with a graduated curve, but not in sections. The defendants' collars were brought into the market after the original patent was issued, and before the reissue was applied for; and the reissue was obtained to cover those collars; and, although it was applied for only a little over three months after the date of the original patent, there was no inadvertence or mistake, so far as the short or sectional bands were concerned, and it was sought merely to enlarge the claim. Claim 2 of the reissue was substantially the same as the single claim of the original patent, and claim 3 had as an element short bands. As the defendants' collars had a continuous band, with a graduated curve, and not short or sectional bands, and did not infringe the claim of the original patent, or claims 2 and 3 of the reissue, and claims 1 and 4 thereof were invalid, the bill was dismissed.

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern Dis trict of New York.

Hamilton Wallis and Edmund Wetmore,

W. F. Cogswell, for appellants.

for appellees.

BLATCHFORD, J. This is a suit in equity, brought in May, 1878, in the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of New York, for the infringement of reissued letters patent No. 8,169, granted to the plaintiff, Washington Wilson, as inventor, April 9, 1878, on an application therefor filed March 11, 1878, for an "improvement in collars," (the original patent, No. 197,807, having been granted to him December 4, 1877.) The specifica tions and claims of the original and reissued patents are as follows, the orig

1 S. C. 6 Fed. Rep. 611.

inal being on the left hand, and the reissue on the right hand, and the parts of each which are not found in the other being in italic:

2

*272

*273

$275

*The following are the drawings of the reissue, those of the original patent being the same, except that the button-hole is not lettered in the original:

Fig.1.

Fig. 2.

A

A

A

The answer sets up, as defenses, (1) that the reissue was obtained for the purpose of covering a style or form of collar not intended to be covered by the original patent, the original covering a short or sectional band collar only, and the reissue being intended to cover a different style of band, subsequently adopted by the plaintiff, and not having been procured for the purpose of correcting a mistake in the claim of the original; (2) that the plaintiff was not the original and first inventor of the thing patented; (3) non-infringement.

The case was heard on pleadings and proofs, and a decision rendered (18 Blatchf. C. C. 532; S. C. 6 Fed. Rep. 611) in favor of the plaintiff, on which an interlocutory decree was entered, January 8, 1881, adjudging the reissued patent to be valid, and to have been infringed by the defendants, by the manufacture and sale of four collars: Exhibit F, Delhi; Exhibit G, Orion; Exhibit H, Zenith; and Exhibit I, Spy; and awarding an account of profits and damages, to be taken by a master, and a perpetual injunction. On the report of the master, a final decree was entered, July 28, 1881, in favor of the plaintiff, for $8,355.32, which included costs. The defendants appealed to this court.

*The defendants' collars have bands which are continuous from end to end of the collar, and are not in two parts, nor divided by any vertical or other seam, at the center of their length or elsewhere. They have no short or sectional bands, which start from the center of the collar, or from any point between the center and the ends. The band is not shorter than the length of the collar. In the original patent, the invention is stated to be a collar having short or sectional bands; that is, the collar has not a continuous band, of one piece of cloth as long as the collar, and extending from end to end of the collar, but has its band made in two sections, and each of those sections starts or begins to run from the center of the length of the collar, or from a point between the center and the end, to and beyond the end. The bands have a graduated curve and increasing width, from their starting points, to and beyond the ends of the collar. But that is only one feature in the claim of the

original patent. The other feature, the sectional bands, is made equally important in that claim, and a collar is not the collar of that claim unless it has both of those features. That claim is limited to a collar with those features, "substantially as described and shown."

The circuit court adopted the view that a band, composed of two sectional bands, starting from the center, and proceeding with a graduated curve and increasing width, would not make the whole band any less a continuous band with a graduated curve and increasing width towards each end; that the use of a continuous band of the latter description would not make the parts of it each side of the center any the less sectional bands; that neither would be a continuous band of uniform width, and, as compared with that, there would be a saving of material by the use of either arrangement; and that it made no difference, in the Wilson invention, whether there was a vertical seam in the center of the band or not, provided the other features of the collar existed;* that if there existed, before Wilson's invention, a collar having those features, the fact that it had not such vertical seam would not distinguish it from the Wilson invention; that the real invention shown in the original specification was that claimed in the reissue; and that the reissue was, therefore, valid.

The defendants' collars have a band of continuous material from end to end of the collar, and the back button-hole in the body of the collar, but the band is not of uniform width throughout, being narrowed in the center. It has, as a whole, the same style of graduated curve which the Wilson collar has. The defendants' collars were first made and sold after the original patent of Wilson was granted, and after the defendants had seen sectional band collars made under it. The first of the defendants' four collars was made and sold in February, 1878, and the other three in March or April or May, 1878. The reissue was applied for March 11, 1878, and Wilson testifies that his impression is that he had previously heard of the defendants' collars. It is evident that the reissue was obtained because the defendants' collar, with a continuous band, had been put on the market, and for the purpose of obtaining claims which would certainly cover such a collar. The changes made in the specification and claims show this. The specification of the reissue, in stating what the invention consists of, omits the statement that it is a collar having sectional bands, and states that it is a collar having curved and graduated bands. It also omits the statement that the bands start from the center, or from a point between the center and the ends, and states that the curved and graduated bands extend along the lower edge of the collar, from the center, or from a point between the center and the ends. The statement of the invention, in the original patent, did not cover the defendants' collars, nor did the claim of that patent. The second claim of the reissue is substantially the same as the claim of the original patent. But the first and fourth claims of the reissue, corresponding with the changes made in the description, ignore the short or sectional bands, and refer only to a curved and graduated band. The third claim preserves the short bands, curved and graduated. As the defendants' collars do not have the short or sectional bands, and so do not infringe the second and third claims of the reissue, the question arises as to the validity of the first and fourth claims, which it is alleged are infringed.

The final decree in this case was entered July 28, 1881. The decisions of this court in Miller v. Brass Co. 104 U. S. 350, and James v. Campbell, Id. 356, were made January 9, 1882. Under those decisions, and many others made by this court since, the first and fourth claims of the reissue cannot be sustained. Although this reissue was applied for a little over three months after the original patent was granted, the case is one where it is sought merely to enlarge the claim of the original patent, by repeating that claim and adding others; where no mistake or inadvertence is shown. so far as the