subscriber. Conversation may then be carried on directly the called subscriber raises his telephone from the hook switch. By removing the receiver from the hook the contacts are joined, the current flows through the supervisory relay attracting the armature, and the lighted lamp is cut out. To disconnect a line, each subscriber hangs his receiver on the hook, which breaks the flow of the current and lights a lamp, thus giving notice to the operator that the lines may be disconnected. It is not necessary to specify the various parts, the arrangement of the circuits, and the connections together with their functional results. They consist of a complicated mass of instrumentalities, their relations, however, to a signaling system becoming simplified when their presence or absence in a circuit is once understood. The sketches in evidence with their explanations have been helpful. A simplified sketch of defendant's signaling system follows:

The complainant contends that the claims in issue are embodied in the defendant's method of inward and outward calling; that the same result is achieved by defendant, though it has extended the range of the outgoing call by known devices and methods so as to make such call whenever desirable. It is also claimed that the apparatus of the defendant is arranged in multiple with a break, instead of in series, which causes the different currents to operate so that only one of such currents to the exclusion of the other will energize the bell magnet; that the defendant uses what is known as a condenser, which shunts a direct current in its calling branch wire at the substation to allow the alternating current to pass through it so as to achieve the bi-directional calling. It is explained that an alternating current passes through the condenser to give the inward call in the defendant's system when the subscriber lifts his receiver from the hook, and that thereupon the circuit closes while the current from the common battery energizes the annunciator giving notice to the operator of the action of the subscriber. When the operator at the telephone exchange calls a subscriber to the telephone, the alternating current of the generator passes through the line. If the hook is in its normal position at the substation, the current is separated, and passes through the branch circuit to the hook. As the bell magnet and the condenser are in the branch circuit the current passing through it rings the bell. In complainant's organization, as already shown, the magnet, C, is energized by a current from the common battery to repel the armature, and by a current from the second battery to in turn attract it so as to enable the central office to ascertain the requirements of the guest. Is such method an outward call as that term is defined in the art? There is no possible way by which the central office when the instrument is released may call the substation. No messages of any kind can be transmitted from the central office without a message transmission having first been initiated at the substation. I think there is a radical difference between complainant's and defendant's method of bi-directional signaling. The defendant though it has normally open contacts with a common battery current flowing when the contacts are closed, and a multiplicity of subscribers, it nevertheless uses parts having other functions than to merely produce signaling from terminal to terminal. The defendant does not use a polarized magnet to repel the armature, nor is the armature of the magnet attracted by a different current. In fact, the bell magnet does not operate to signal the telephone exchange and then to transmit a reply message. It does not seem to me that a combined result is produced in defendant's inward and outward calling, but each call is separate and independent of the other. No return signal is shown other than the operator's articulated request of the signaling subscriber as to his wants, and, as already stated, that is done by simply inserting a plug in the springjack, then speaking into the receiver, thereby establishing a talking current as shown. in the Cheever patent. The later signaling of a called subscriber

by depressing a ringing key and using an alternating current to energize the bell magnet is over a line having no relation to the line of the calling subscriber until the called subscriber moves his receiver from the hook in response to the bell notification. The Herzog patent is not for such a method of signaling. In the patent in suit the forces when set in motion as already indicated accomplish a different result. What Herzog aimed to achieve was due to an adaptation from which emerged an improvement of the latent signal transmitter. The defendant insists, however, that it was old to arrange a bell magnet in multiple with a break, and such. an arrangement was the equivalent of a magnet in series with a break. And it is urged that the arrangement of the condenser in the branch line in which is placed the magnet was a substantial equivalent of Herzog's method of achieving the result aimed at by him. From my examination of the questions submitted it is my opinion that, though the parts and instrumentalities combined by the defendant were old, they nevertheless accomplished a different result than is possessed by the Herzog improvement. In Electric Signal Co. v. Hall Signal Co., 114 U. S. 87, 5 Sup. Ct. 1069, 29 L. Ed. 96, the Supreme Court, dealing with a somewhat similar situation, says:

"To constitute identity of invention, and therefore infringement, not only must the result attained be the same, but in case the means used for its attainment is a combination of known elements, the elements combined in both cases must be the same, and combined in the same way, so that each element shall perform the same function, provided, however, that the differences alleged are not merely colorable, according to the rule forbidding the use of known equivalents."

See, also, Machine Co. v. Murphy, 97 U. S. 120, 24 L. Ed. 935; Edison v. American Mutoscope & Biograph Co., 151 Fed. 767, 81 C. C. A. 391. This rule is not inapposite to the case at bar. The complainant further contends that the receiving apparatus, T, in the patent in suit functionally operates as does the supervisory device of the defendant. In this I do not agree, as the specification clearly indicates that the instrument, T, is simply for receiving the message to be transmitted from the substation. In the defendant's system there is no supervisory when the telephone exchange is communicated with by a subscriber. Accordingly, the supervisory of the defendant is not the equivalent of the receiving instrument, T, which evidently signals whenever the circuit is joined or disjoined at the substation.

It is next contended by the defendant that the broad claims in controversy were not filed until after its signaling system had gone into public use, and that such claims were purposely included to cover the system of signaling. This assertion would seem to be not altogether groundless, but I do not deem it necessary to limit the claims for that reason. Herzog omitted to make clear in his description the inward and outward system of signaling used by the

defendant, or its substantial equivalent, and his claims are broader than is warranted by the specification.

There were other propositions argued at the bar, but, having reached the foregoing conclusion, it is obviously unnecessary to discuss them. The Herzog patent, No. 628,464, is valid, but not infringed by the defendant.

Decree for the defendant, with costs.

INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER CO. v. RICHARDSON MFG. CO.

(Circuit Court, D. Massachusetts. August 19, 1909.)

No. 375.

PATENTS ($328*)-INFRINGEMENT-MANURE SPREADER.

The Kemp patent, No. 632,124, for an improvement in manure spreaders, consisting of a tailboard placed immediately in front of the beater to prevent it from becoming clogged in loading, means for raising and lowering the same, and a stop device to prevent the wagon bottom and beater from being operated until the tailboard is raised, discloses invention in such means of operation and stop device, but is limited by the prior art to the precise construction shown, with a narrow range of equivalents. As so narrowly construed, it is not infringed by the device of the Brown patents, Nos. 731,539 and 821,779.

[Ed. Note. For other cases, see Patents, Dec. Dig. § 328.*]

In Equity. On final hearing.

Banning & Banning and Thomas A. Banning, for complainant. Fish, Richardson, Herrick & Neave and Guy Cunningham, for defendant.

COLT, Circuit Judge. This is a suit for infringement of letters patent No. 632,124, issued August 29, 1899, to Joseph S. Kemp for improvements in manure spreaders. The principal improvement covered by the patent and the only one involved in the present case, relates to a tailboard which is incorporated in the machine for the purpose of "preventing the beater from becoming clogged in loading."

A manure spreader is a wagon much like the ordinary farm wagon, with a movable bottom and a beater or rotatable cylinder with projecting teeth located at the end of the wagon. By the slow rearward movement of the bottom the manure is brought against the rapidly rotating beater and scattered upon the field. The rear wagon wheels give the driving power for the bottom and the beater, and these parts are operated by a lever in front of the wagon. By moving the lever the driver can engage or disengage the connecting gears or clutch mechanism, and thereby set the bottom and beater in operation or cause them to remain stationary.

Kemp took out several prior patents for improvements in manure spreaders, and the patent in suit is for the addition of this tailboard and operating mechanism to the prior Kemp machine.

For other cases see same topic & § NUMBER in Dec. & Am. Digs. 1907 to date, & Rep'r Indexes

A perspective view of the Kemp manure spreader with this tailboard addition is illustrated in the following cut:

This board, as shown in the cut, is located at the end of the wagon box directly in front of the beater. Its purpose is to prevent the manure from clogging the beater in loading and transportation to the field; and it accomplishes this purpose by confining or holding back the manure in the wagon box until just before the spreading operation begins. The board is lowered into the wagon box before loading, and is raised bodily and vertically out of the box before starting the machine. This is accomplished by means of the long pivoted arms and connecting mechanism. The board is operated from the driver's seat by a separate lever. This lever is provided with a stop device in the form of a laterally projecting pin, which prevents the raising of the beater and movable bottom lever before the board lever has been raised. In other words, this stop device prevents the machine from starting until the board has been raised. It appears that a similar tailboard was occasionally inserted in the earlier Kemp spreader. This board, however, was a hand board. It was lowered into the box by hand, and was raised out of the box by hand, or by means of a lever. In the machine of the patent in suit Kemp embodied the means he conceived for raising and lowering the board and the stop device for preventing the machine from starting until the board had been raised.

The claims in issue are 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Claims 1, 2, and 3 are for combinations of the principal features of the prior manure spreader with the tailboard and the whole or parts of the mechanism for operating the board; while claims 5, 6, 7, and 8 are for combinations of the principal features of the prior manure spreader with the tailboard and a stop device which prevents the machine from starting before the board has been raised.

The Kemp board has proved to be useful. Its use is advantageous where the manure is heavy and soggy. It has not, however, supplanted the old way of preventing the manure from clogging the beater by moving the bottom forward a few inches before starting