Samuel Blatchford

“ This chair-seat was new and useful. There did not exist before, as an article of manufacture, a chair-seat composed of laminae of wood, with the grains crossed and glued together, moulded to be concave, and perforated. The statute makes novelty and utility the only test of patentability. In a suit for infringement the decision of the commissioner of patents is final, as to the matters involved in granting a patent, except as to the questions specifically enumerated as defenses in the five subdivisions of section 4920 of the Revised Statutes. ”

“ My chair-seat is a new article, possessing great strength and durability. It is very light and cheap. It forms an agreeable seat. It is not hot in summer or cold in winter. The perforations give the wood a handsome appearance, and afford the required ventilation, and the seat is adapted to be secured to any chair-frame, as it is easily cut and fitted to the same, and the cost of these seats is less than those made of cane, and they are much more durable. In the drawings, Figure 1 is a plan, with the upper layer of veneer partially removed. ”

“ His seats, as now made, can be fitted without mechanical skill to a bottomless chair, and are largely used to repair chairs in which the original seats have been worn out, and can be so used without any special skill. They are also largely sold to chair manufacturers, because they can be easily adapted to chairs of different sizes and seats of different forms. But the chair-seat described in Gardner's original patent, as shown in the drawings, did not practically possess this characteristic of adaptability, but was a frame seat, which could not be fitted to a chair by a skilled laborer. ”

“ Fig. 2 is a vertical section of the chair and seat. I have shown three layers of veneers, A, B, C. The grain of the veneer, A, crosses that of the veneer, B, and the grain of the veneer. B, crosses that of the veneer, C, and these are cemented together by suitable adhesive substance, such as glue. The seat is of a concave or dishing form, so as to be better adapted to the shape of the person, and the under side of the seat is convex. The perforations through the seat are to be arranged to produce any design that may be agreeable to the fancy of the person making or using the chair. ”

“ The fabric being old, the suggestion to construct chair-seats out of it being old, the shaping of it in a former being old, the perforation of a seat for ventilation and ornamentation being old, and the giving of a concave shape to a wooden seat by pressure being old, there cannot, in view of the disclaimers in the second reissue, be anything patentable in the structure. ”

“ It is strongly urged that Gardner's seat is cheap, strong, durable, can be applied to different chair-seat frames, can be sold separate from chair-seat frames, and can be applied to chair-seat frames by unskilled labor ”

“ An application being made for a preliminary injunction, it was denied, in May, 1879. 16 Blatchf. 303. The patent of December, 1865, to the defendant Mayo, and division E of its reissue of August 18, 1868, (both of them mentioned in Gardner's second reissue,) being put in evidence, it was held that what was claimed in the first claim of Gardner's first reissue was described in the two Mayo patents, both of which were issued prior to Gardner's original patent. This related to the veneers, with crossing grains glued together, of the first four claims of Gardner's first reissue. ”