FARMERS' INSTITUTES. 



219 



A public meeting was called and an organization of farmers, called the Mu- 

 tual Defense Associatiori, was perfected. The patent changed hands about 

 this time, and from this date the farmers were prosecuted by Dale, Bagley and 

 Root. Forty-four suits were begun against members of the association (with 

 one exception), all of which were dismissed without trial, after the plaintiflEs 

 had made the defendants all the cost possible. In a single case they supposed 

 and actually did have an infringement on Lee's patent. They were defeated, 

 however, by the defendants, who showed the use of the gate more than two 

 years before Lee's application for a patent, and further that Lee's was an in- 

 fringement on a broader patent given to A. C Teel, Dec. 1, 1SG3, and reissued 

 July 20, 1867. The owners of the Lee patent, by making active efforts, were 

 abte to purchase the Teel patent, or at least the State right of that patent. 



Fig. 4 is an exact copy of the drawing of Teel's gate, published in the patent 

 office report for 1803, and the following is the description and claim as allowed 

 by the patent office : 



s= 



a 



:7~:5- 



M 



T^lan. of' Tee.X'9 ^A,te?i,it' Q-Q--* g- 



f 



Fig:. 4. 



"No. 40777.— A. C. Teel of Girarcl, ;jtracoupin Co.. 111.— Improvement in farm gates. 

 —Patent dated December 1. 1863.— This panel of fence is to hang upon strips attached 

 to the neighboring panels, tiiut it maybe pushed in half the length of a panel and 

 then swung one-quarter round so as to make an opening the length of a panel. 

 Claim — 'i'he suspending of the gate A on strips d, d' attached to posts C D C D' at 

 the ends B B of the fence, substantially as shown, to admit of the sliding of the gate 

 and the turning of the same for the purpose of opening and closing it as herein set 

 forth." 



The figure shoes only the plan of the gate, and one letter, C, is evidently 

 misplaced, but dispite this the patent secures to A. 0. Teel all the essential 

 features of the slide gate. B'ig. 5 is an isometric drawing of Teel's patent gate 

 with the letters C and C in their i:)roper places. 



As previously stated, when an inventor can prove that the specifications do 

 not cover his whole invention, the patent office allows him to restate the spec- 

 ifications, under the name of a "Keissue." A reissue does not extend the 

 time of the patent, but after it is once granted its specifications replace those 

 of the original patent. July 2, 1807, A. C. Teel took advantage of this law 

 and obtained a "reissue," of which the following is an exact copy: 



Fig. 5. 

 "•2()G7.— A. C. Teel, Girard. Ill.-Farm gate, patented December 1, 1SG3; reissued 

 Jidy 2, 1SG7. Claim— First, the h-uiging or suspending of a gate in such a manner 

 that it will have a combined sliding and swiuiring inovenicnt in the opening and 

 closing of the same, the gate sliding from a closed position or state to a central bal- 

 anced state, and then swinging while in a state of equipoise to an open position, and 



