MILLEB ». 3MITH. 868 �patent is invalid, and they introduced a great number of patents and printed publications for the same purpose. Of the -witnesses, one consists' of an expert in penmanship, and the other is an expert in engraving and lithographing. They coneur in the opinion that it requires no skill to produce the patented design of the complainants, to which the first witness added that it required nothing more than the ordinary skill of the draftsman, in view of the exhibits produced in evidence and referred to in the record. Prior patents and printed publications compose the body of the exhibits, and the com- plainants' witnesses show to the satisfaction of the court that they are utterly insufficient to overcome the prima fade pre- sumption of the patent, when considered in connection with the patented articles mauufactured by the complainants. Explanations as to the history of the invention were given by one of the complainants, and they also called an expert wit- ness, who gives a full statement of the respondents' exhibits, and shows that none of them are of a character to supersede the patented invention. He points eut the difference between figures in actual relief, such as are the subject of the patent in question, and figures where the effect is produced upon the eye merely by linear representation or artificial shading, as shown in several examples given in his testimony. Super- added to that, he shows the pràctical importance of the differ- ence between a design of rustic letters ornamented with leaves, placed Bolely upon the necessary lines of the letters, and a rustic letter having branches and sprays of leaves springing from and around the same, as shown in some of respondents' exhibits. Exhibits introduced by a party without needful explanation do not deserve, and will not receive, much con- sideration. AH such introduced by the respondents as were properly explained by their experts are olearly shown by the testimony of the expert called by the complainants to be insufficient to maintain the defence of want of novelty. His statements to that effect are unqualified, and his explanations are persuasive and convincing that the statements are true and reliable. None of the exhibits explained show a rustic letter in relief, ornamented with leaves in relief only upon the ����
