OUNBAB V. BBTABKOOK. 547 �BÎon to institute a comparison between Whidden's naîl and those whicE preceded it. I do not believe he intended tô express anything more than a present impression, if bo much. He was deciding the differences between Estabrook and Whidden, and not those between Whidden and Field or Bent. Judge Shepley, I am sure, would bave been much surprised to leam that he was supposed, in deciding one case, to bave decided a wbolly different one. He said, in passing, that the plaintiffs' nail was much like the Field and other nails, as it was ; and most particularly it was very much indeed like the Bent nail, — much more than it was like the Field nail. I compared it with the Bent nail for that reason. It is my habit to deal speeially with the part of the case which seems to me the most diffieult. When I found that the Bent nail was not, on the whole, an anticipation of Whidden, it foUowed, in my opinion of the relative importance of those two nails to the issue, that the Field nail was no answer to Whidden's patents. Such was and is my opinion. I do not consider that the Field nail, made in brass, would be a successful shoe nail. It differs at both ends from the Whidden, in important particulars. No doubt the differences in ail these nails are somewhat minute, and there is difficulty in sustain- ing any of the patents; but, for the reasons given in the for- mer case, judging the nails by their work, there appears to me to be novelty enough to save the Whidden patents. It was not the Field nail that caused my hesitation. �I likewise continue to think that the cub nail infringes the patents of the plaintiffs. The defendants maintain that the cub is an improvement upon Estabrook, and in a different line of invention, according to Judge Shepley's views, from Whidden's. I do not understand those views exactly as the defendants do. Judge Shepley saved the Estabrook patent, as I understand bis decision, by distinguishing bis nail from the earlier imported sprig in three particulars, of which two are that Estabrook's patented nailis without a head, and that it bas a regiilar screw thread. He also twice speaks of the Estabrook nail as made of wire. In these three respects Whidden differed from Estabrook, and therefore did not in- ����
