Looxwoon v. onnvmnsun. 39
erasive rubber, not much was accomplished by him before the spring
of 1875, when he began to prepare for the market and to take orders
for the manufacture of rubber erasers, the edges and surfaces of A
which had a soft, velvet Bnish, from two or three days’ tumbling in
a drum. He had been dissatisBed with his previous experiments,
but was now so well pleased with his compounds that he Bled his .
A application for letters patent June 24, 1875, and obtained them on
September 7th following.
Holton, on the other hand, claims that in March, 1872, he acci-
dently stumbled upon the discovery that protracted tumbling offvul-
canized rubber would remove the crust from the surface andprepare
the rubber for use in erasing pencil marks. He states that in pre-
paring rubber for the Eagle Pencil Company he put some samples in ,
the drum to be Bnished, and, forgetting them, they remained there
and underwent the tumbling process all day. When he took the
pieces from the drum in the evening he discovered that not only the
corners were worn off, but that the glaze had been taken from the
surface, which glaze of crust had always been considered an objection
to new rubber. He tried them in removing pencil marks from paper,
and foundthat they took hold of the paper at once, and removedtho
markswithout blackening the surface. = "
‘ After a careful examination of the testimony, I am inclined to re-
gard both Lockwood and Holton as original and _independent in-
ventors or discoverers of the fact on which the patents are founded.
The former, however, has been more diligent. He followed up his
discovery with many experiments respecting the mixture of thecom-
pound from which the material was to be obtained, and when he
reached satisfactory results, promptly secured his patent. Holton,
indeed, experimented, and gave the products of said experiments to
his friends for trial and approval; but he made no application for a
patent until June,,1877,-—a long time after the complainant had oh-
tained his patent, and had established the value of the patented ar-
r ticle by creating a demand for it in the public market.
I must hold, in this case, that Lockwood was the original and Brst _
inventor or discoverer of the improvement in India-rubber erasers,
and that Holton was also the original, but not the Brst, inventor or dis-
coverer; and that, even if he was, he has lost the right to claim the
beneBts thereof by laches in Bling his application for the patent
more than two years after the invention had been in public use or
on sale in the country.
Let a decree be entered adjudging and declaring the letters pat-
ent No. 233,511, issued to Francis H. Holton, void, and restraining
the defendant, and all claiming any interest in said letters patent
under him, from instituting or prosecuting any suit at law or in
equity for any alleged infringement of said patent, with costs to the
complainant.