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United States Circuit Court.--District of New Jersey. THEBERATH VS. THE RUBBER AND CELLULOID HARNESS TRIMMING COMPANY. Nixon, D. J. : Letters patent No. 99,032 held invalid. Letters patent No. 99,032, granted to Tbeberath, for an improvement in the covering of harness trimmings, held to be invalid for the reason that the invention was in public use more than two years prior to filing the application, that fact appearing from the admissions of the plaintiff upon cross-examination. Patents for designs have reference to appearance rather than utility. Their object is to encourage the arts of decoration rather than the iuyention of useful products; but all regulations and provisions hat are applicable to the obtaining or protecting of patents for inventions are by section 4,933 made applicable also to design patents. A design patent may be defeated, therefore, upon proof that articles which revealed to the eye the same design which is the subject of the patent were publicly made and sold for more than two years before the application was filed. United States Circuit Court.--District of Connecticut. ANDREWS et al. VS. ? AMES. Shipman, J. : The driven well patent--reissue sustained. The validity of the reissued patent to Nelson W. Green for driven wells sustained on authority of prior decisions. The patent is infringed by boring or digging to the sources of the water supply when the soil is rough, or for other reasons it is difficult to drive or press a tube into the soil, provided, before a supply of water is reached, the patented process is thereafter used for the purpose of obtaining an adequate flow of water upon the surface of the ground. This is a bill in equity to restrain the defendant from the infringement of reissued letters patent to Nelson W. Green, dated May 9, 1871, and commonly known as the "Driven Well Patent." The original patent was issued January 14, 1868. The litigation upon the construction and validity of this patent began in the United States Circuit Court for the Eastern District of New York. Judge -Benedict's opinion sustaining the patent (Andrews vs. Carman, 13 Blatchf., C. C. R. 307) has been followed by Judge Blatchf ord (Andrews vs. Cross, 8 Fed. Rep. 269) and by the circuit courts in other districts wherever the question has been tried. The decision of Judge Gresham in Hine vs. Wahl, also sustaining the patient, has recently been affirmed by an equally divided Supreme Court, In this state of the litigation the construction which was given to the patent by Judges Benedict and Blatchfbrd wiH be followed without discussion. ""* The defendant relied upon the invalidity of the reissued patent, its want of novelty, and upon non-infringement. The first defense presents a question upon which I much desired to read the views of the Supreme Court in Hine vs. Wahl, where the question was directly made; but in view of the fact that the court did not declare the reissue invalid, it is not improper to regard the patent as sustained. I may add that my own opinion tends in favor of the validity of the reissue. Upon tlte question of novelty the Goode patent and the other printed exhibits have reference to an Artesian well made by boring, and not to a well made by driving, and without removing the earth upward. The remaining question is that of infringement. The defendant's two wells were made by Frederick B. Piatt and Daniel Clark. The defendant's counsel strenuously urge that these wells were constructed by boring; that the wells were bored until water was struck--that is, until a supply of water was obtained, and that the wells were finished by pressing the pipes more deeply into the source of supply which had been reached when the workmen "struck water." In other words, the defendant seeks to bring the case within the decision of Judge McCrary in Andrews vs. Long (12 Fed. Rep. 871). In this case, however, the witnesses, when they used the common expression, "struck water," did not mean that they had reached an adequate source of supply for a well, but that they had reached a place where the presence of water manifested itself, and where by continuous excavation an adequate supply would be attained. The wet sand or wet clay upon the auger showed that water was at hand. The well was then finished and a supply of water was obtained by pressing or driving a tube into the ground, without removing the earth upward, and attaching thereto a pump. When this was done, there was put-- " To practical use the newprinciple of forcing the water in the water bearing strata of the earth from the earth into a well pit by the use of artificial power applied to create a vacuum in the water bearing strata of the earth, and at the same time in the well pit." (Andrews vs. Cross, 8 Fed. Rep. 269.) A workman in our New England soil would not ordinarily be able to drive or press a tube into the stony or tough crust, which must be penetrated before water bearing strata are reached; but it is no adequate argument against infringement that it is necessary to bore or dig into the rough and hard Soil or the mass of tough clay which lies over the sources of water supply, provided, before a supply of water is reached, the patented process is thereafter used for the purpose of obtaining an adequate flow of water upon the Surface of the ground. Let there be the usual decree for an injunction and an accounting.
