Joseph P. Bradley

“ At this point we are constrained to say that we cannot yield our assent to the argument, that the combination of the different parts or elements for attaining the object in view was so obvious as to merit no title to invention. Now that it has succeeded, it may seem very plain to any one that he could have done it as well. This is often the case with inventions of the greatest merit. ”

“ Ths attachment to pile-fabric looms became generally known as the wire movement; and by its aid twenty-five yards a day could be woven on a single loom without the aid of any assistant. It is seldom that such a complete revolution in one of the useful arts is made at a single jump. Improvements, however, have been made on Bigelow's invention. Amongst others, one William Weild, of Manchester, England, in or about the year 1855 effected a decided improvement, which, after being perfected by succeeding improvements, enabled him to weave thirty or forty yards a day on a single loom. ”

“ A person skilled in the art of constructing or using such looms in their most advanced and improved form, such as those known as the Bigelow loom and the Weild loom, and having one actually before him, or in his mind, would readily appreciate the meaning of the terms and the character of the improvement described. ”

“ An invention relating to machinery may be exhibited either in a drawing or in a model, so as to lay the foundation of a claim to priority, if it be sufficiently plain to enable those skilled in the art to understand it. There is no doubt that Davis understood Webster's drawing; and he did not then claim that the invention belonged to himself.
The evidence relating to loom No. 50 leads in the same direction. This was a loom of the defendants which they commenced to alter in the latter part of 1870. Davis was not employed to make the alterations on this loom. ”

“ The latch, when the end of the wire-bar next to the loom oscillates or vibrates to the front of the wire-box, drops upon a wire-head into a nick or notch made therein, and withdraws the wire into the trough, and then, when the latter oscillates back to the shed, without releasing its hold of the wire-head, drives the wire into the shed, and is then lifted out of the notch by striking the edge of the wire-box, sloped up for that purpose, and releases the wire ”

“ If the thing could not be understood without the exercise of inventive power, it is a little strange that it should have been so easily adapted to the looms on which it has been used with such striking results. ”

“ The appellants, indeed, have raised the question whether evidence to show that the invention is not described in the patent in such full, clear, and exact terms as to enable a person skilled in the art to construct and use it, is admissible, unless the defence is specially set up in connection with a charge that the description in the patent was made defective for the purpose of deceiving the public. ”

“ When the question is, whether a thing can be done or not, it § always easy to find persons ready to show how not to do it. But it stands confessed that the thing has been done, that is to say, the contrivance which Webster claims in his patent has been applied, and very successfully so, to pile-fabric looms, and, as the appellant's counsel well remarks, no one except Webster has ever appeared to claim a patent for doing it. ”

“ Nothing further is necessary to be said in order to dispose of the defence which was strenuously urged, and to which the court below attached much importance, that the specification was insufficient in its description of the invention sought to be patented, and failed to show any means of applying it to existing looms; and that independent invention would have to be exercised to make it a practical working apparatus as an attachment of such looms. ”

“ The argument of the defendants' counsel on this subject is very ingenious and plansible; but we are forced to the conviction that the slide intended in the combination is that which is indispensable to the operation of the apparatus. And this must have been the conviction of the defendants themselves, as well as of their counsel, when they made the affidavit before referred to.
In conclusion, our judgment is, that Webster invented the combination described in the fifth claim of the patent; that the invention is sufficiently described in the specification to meet the requirements of the law ”