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BEFORE JUDGE BLATCHFORD Charles Ball vs. Jame.1 Bird.This was an action foran infringement of a patent granted to the plaintiff on May 30.1864, for a maehine lor stretching chains so as to make the links of uniform len gth. The def ense set up was that in 185a the defendant's father had a machine built for him for streten-ing chains, which he placed in his cellar and used, but which he kept concealed from persons in general; that this machine, after a while, was no longer used, his father having died in 1862; but in 1865 he removed the nia-chinefrom thatcellarinto his shop, where it was fitted up, used to stretch cnains, and that this was the infringement complained of. It appeared, however that in 1864, the plaintiff's maehine was described to the defendant by a workman in his employ who had seen it, and that till the removal of the old machine, the defendant had stretched chain links by hand, with the hammer and anvil. JIM by the Court-That on the faets of the case, the knowledge of the defendant's machine was as effectually lost as if it had not been cons.ruct-ed, and the plaintiff's invention was new and unknown, and patentable, notwithstanding the existence of the defendant's machine. (Savior vs. Wilder, 10, How., 477). That the defendant ha failed to establish the identity of the old machine with the machine now used by him in one important particular; uamely,in the provision in the jaws of the tongs for grasping the links of tile chains,so as not to injure it or any other link. That on the evidence the plaintiff" is entitled to recover, but as he has failed to establish any specifie amount of damages, the amount awarded will be only six cents.
