wasmsuim at MOEN MANU1¤·’G,0o. v. GRINNELL WIRE 00. 31
I cannot state in detail all the various items of testimony of this
kind, for there is a great volume of it, coming from many witnesses,
and on both sides. Two or three matters, I may state, have led me
to doubt seriously the truthfulness of Mr. Stone’s statement: First,
the great diiiiculty of coiling staples around the fence·wire in the
manner and with the instruments that he had. I have tried, and had
tried, this matter experimentally before me. While it may be done,
yet the process is exceedingly slow and diHicult,—so slow and difficult
that I think no man would pursue it except under the most impera-
tive need. Again, Mr. Stone’s explanation of the reason for doing
it is, to say the least, an improbable one. He says that he did it in
order to make the people living on the adjacent tract believe that he
thought cattle broke the fence down. I do not think it probable that
any man would take such pains to impress his neighbors with any
conviction as to his own beliefs. There was also another matter in
his testimony which, for the moment, has escaped my recollection,
but which, as I studied ’it, led me seriously to doubt his veracity.
Of course, striking his testimony out as not entitled to credence, the
defendants’ case must fail in this respect; and, while I am reluctant
to impugn the veracity of any witness, I must confess that his own .
testimony carried discredit to my mind. The complainant presented
what was testified to be an accurate model of tl1e cross-fence in its
present condition, and their counsel argued that it carried on its face
a perfectdemonstration of the falsity of Mr. Stone’s testimony. I
could not see the force of this alleged demonstration, and yet, for the
reason above named, I felt, after studying the matter, that Mr.
Stone’s testimony was not entitled to belief. So, with some hesita-
tion, I concluded that a case of prior use was not satisfactorily proved.
These are the only instances of prior use alleged. In none of them
do I seethat which would justify me in holding that Mr. Glidden’s
invention was anticipated. That disposes of these cases, and the de-
cree will go for the complainants.
Passing now to the case in which the Putnam machine is claimed
to be infringed by the Penny machine, I will briefly state the results
of my examination. I ought to have the models here, for I could ex-
plain my views much more easily with them before me. In the elab-
orate argument made by Mr. Thurston, and which was subsequently
printed for my examination, it was strenuously insisted that Putnam
occupied the position of a primary inventor; that he was the first `
man who constructed an automatic machine for making barbed wire,
and that, by reason of his position as a primary inventor, questions of A
- doubt as to the facts of infringement should be resolved most liber-
ally in his favor; and though a subsequent machine was composed of
different mechanisms, yet, if they each performed the same function
as those in his machine, it should be treated as an infringement. He
was compared to Prof. Bell, the inventor of the telephone. It does
not seem to me that the comparison is just, and for this reason, which,