Henry Billings Brown

“ Gandy was making various experiments in order to perfect a belt which be was intending to patent, and, having made those various experiments with different kinds of canvas, he at last discovered that a canvas of a particular strength in the warp was the best canvas that could be used for making these belts. * * * But in the patent which he took out there is not a single word to indicate that the warp ought to be stouter than the weft ”

“ The change is such as would only have occurred to one familiar, not alone with the impossibility of making a practical belt out of the ordinary canvas, but to one who had bestowed considerable thought upon the method of overcoming the difficulty. ”

“ It is obvious, even to a non-expert, that, if the belting be made very thick, there is a much greater strain upon the exterior plies, when passing around a small pulley, than upon the inner plies, and that the effect must be both to unduly strain the exterior plies, rendering them liable to break, and to wrinkle the inner ones, subjecting them to the danger of cracking ”

“ Prior to this decision, however, and on December, 1, 1877, Gandy filed a substantial copy of his British specification with the commissioner of patents, and made a similar claim for 'a belt or band for driving machinery, constructed of hard-woven cotton canvas or duck, stitched, and saturated and interlarded with oil, such as linseed oil, or any combination thereof, as herein described or set forth.' A patent was refused, however, upon the ground that the alleged invention was substantially anticipated by certain English patents issued in 1858 and 1861. ”

“ This canvas is really the only one for which the patentee has sought to obtain a patent, although his first application was refused because he neglected to describe his real invention. Each of these belts is made of canvas, with warp obviously larger than the weft, and containing every other element of the second claim of the patent. In relation to this Mr. Gandy also testifies that he was acquainted with Jones, who was a member of the firm of Garnock, Bibby & Co. ”