and that they were cambered by the use of nuts upon the ends of the rods. If these were facts, and if they were of importance, there must have been working drawings from which some of these beams were constructed, and witnesses who could have identified such drawings and could have testified to the actual construction of the beams which were used, and to the times, places, and circumstances of their use. In the absence of any evidence of this character, the proof of the prior use of this beam upon the Burlington Railroad in 1884 is too uncertain, indefinite, and inconclusive to warrant a court in overthrowing the grants to Hien, and it will be here dismissed with the remark that, even if the prior use of this beam had been established, it could not have anticipated the invention of Hien, because it lacked the peculiar combination of devices, the essential elements and attributes, which distinguish Hien's structure from all that went before it, as will be seen in the discussion of the established references which follows. We proceed with that discussion. On April 21, 1874, letters patent No. 149,902 were issued to George Westinghouse, Jr., wherein a double-trussed wooden brake beam, which is illustrated by this drawing, was described: WOODEN TRUSSED BEAM OF WESTINGHOUSE This brake beam had a wooden compression member, two iron tension members, iron boxes, D, open at the rear for the reception of the ends of the compression member, bolts extending through the compression member near its ends from rear to front and through the fronts of the boxes, provided with threads and nuts by means of which the ends of the compression member could be drawn forward into the boxes, and recesses in the sides of the boxes and holes in their ends, through which the ends of the tension member were inserted and where these ends were rigidly secured by upset heads. This brake beam was constructed by first inserting the ends of the tension rods through the recesses in the sides and the openings in the ends of the boxes and setting up their heads. The strut was then interposed, and the ends of the compression member were drawn forward by means of the nuts on the ends of the bolts, which had been inserted through the ends of the beams and the fronts of the boxes, until the iron boxes were closed. This brake beam was so constructed that the drawing of the ends of the compression member forward into these boxes had the effect to tighten the tension rods, and the patentee remarked in his specification that this tightening might be carried so far as to give the beam a slight crown or arch. There is much dispute among the witnesses over the question whether or not a wooden beam of the requisite size and strength for a brake beam can be suc cessfully cambered by this device. Our conclusion is that it can be. But the size and strength of the requisite wooden beam, the inherent nature of wood, its stiffness, the slight resilience of so large a beam, the cumbrous and inapt means which this device provides to produce, maintain, and adjust this spring, and the testimony of the witnesses in this case, leave no doubt that the brake beam of this patent never could be a successful competitor for practical use by the side of the simple, light, adjustable combination of Hien, and that no such structure could be a mechanical equivalent of his hollow metallic brake beam or an anticipation of his patents; nor do they leave any doubt that the combination shown by this patent has become prac tically obsolete. It lacks the capability which Hien's device contains of producing and maintaining resilience in the beam and of adjusting the shoe to the cone of the tread of the wheel. It lacks the adjustability, compactness, and simplicity of construction which his brake beam exhibits, and whatever it has done in the past or may accomplish in the future has not been and cannot be brought about by this wooden brake beam by the mechanical means described and claimed in Hien's combination, because it contains neither the single tension member with threaded ends passing through the ends of the compression member, nor nuts thereon securing it in place by means of which the tension of the structure, the resilience of the beam, and the coning of the shoes may be produced, adjusted, and maintained; and these are essential elements of the combination of the appellants. Letters patent No. 145,605, issued to Daniel Wellington on December 16, 1872, and letters patent No. 142,600, issued to George Westinghouse, Jr., on September 9, 1873, describe brake beams in which the truss rods are braces, and are not tension members. In the former, the ends of the truss rods are fitted against shoulders or depressions in the structures. In the latter, the truss member is composed of two rods or braces, one on each side of the strut. One end of each of these braces bears against the brake holder, while the other bears upon the end of the opposite brace, or against a block interposed between them, on the principle of the arch. Obviously these devices neither operate on the tension principle of Hien nor contain the essential elements of his combination. The same may be said of the patent to Hedrick, No. 322,099, dated July 14, 1885, for an improvement in brake-block holders, which does not show or describe any brake beam, and which is only mentioned here for the purpose of disclosing its utter irrelevancy, in view of the fact that it was referred to by the examiner in the proceedings anterior to the issue of the patents to Hien; of letters patent No. 270,862, issued to Marden, January 23, 1883; and of letters patent No. 144,240, to Warwick and Duggan, issued on November 4, 1873, which describe simple curved or arched iron brake beams, without tension rods, caps, or nuts. English letters patent No. 5,421, issued to Stephen Alley on December 12, 1881; letters patent No. 243,416, issued to George Westinghouse, Jr., on June 28, 1881; letters patent No. 345,093, issued to George Westinghouse, Jr., on July 6, 1886; and the Car-Builders' Dictionary of 1879,-describe brake beams of the same character and mode of operation so far as the issue now under consideration is concerned. Each of these references shows an iron brake beam in the form of a truss, in which the ends of the tension member do not pass through, but are welded to or made a part of, the compression member, so that they are incapable of movement within or upon it, and so that they cannot be used to create or maintain resilience in the beam, to change the rigidity of the structure, or to cone the shoes to the tread of the wheels. The patent to Alley discloses a beam which has a slight curvature or arch; but this bend is not capable of production or change by use of the truss rod. It is an arch set in the beam when it is made, and incapable of appreciable change or adjustment without a disruption of the entire structure. No one of these devices has the caps, the tension member with threaded ends passing through the ends of the compression member, or the nuts on the ends of the tension member, which constitute such essential elements of the combination of Hien. No one of them has the capability of producing, adjusting, and maintaining the rigidity of the structure, the spring of the beam, or the coning of the shoe by the simple expedient of turning the nuts on the ends of the tension rod; and no one of them is the mechanical equivalent of Hien's invention. Many other patents and references were introduced in evidence in the progress of this cause, but none which illustrate more fully or more clearly than those already noticed the state of the art when the combinations described in the four claims now under consideration were secured; and the question of their patentability arises upon the facts which have now been stated. The second claim of the first patent to Hien is for a combination of old mechanical elements in a new way. It is not for new elements, but for a new method of combining old elements; and a new combination of old elements, whereby a new and useful result is produced, or an old result is attained in a more facile, economical, and efficient way, may be protected by patent as securely as a new machine or composition of matter. Seymour v. Osborne, 11 Wall. 516, 542, 548, 20 L. Ed. 33; Gould v. Rees, 15 Wall. 187, 189, 21 L. Ed. 39; Thomson v. Bank, 53 Fed. 250, 252, 3 C. C. A. 518, 520, 10 U. S. App. 500, 509. The prior art discloses no combination of the elements of Hien's brake beam in the way which he describes. In other words, the method of combination of the old devices which he presented was new. Nowhere in the history of the art can the tension member, with threaded ends passing through the ends of the hollow metallic com pression member, and through caps thereon, secured in place by nuts on its ends, by the mere turning of which the rigidity of the structure, the resilience of the compression member, and the coning of the brake shoes to the tread of the wheels may be produced, adjusted, and maintained, be found. Yet this is the principle of his invention, the mode of its operation, the peculiar combination of devices which dis tinguishes it from other brake beams. Burr v. Duryee, 1 Wall. 531, 570, 17 L. Ed. 650. Was the conception of this combination the skill of the mechanic or the intuition of the inventor? For 12 years mechanics and inventors had been looking and laboring to improve railway brake beams. They had produced the cumbrous and unadjustable double-trussed wooden beam of the patent of 1874 to Westinghouse, his rigid and unadjustable iron trussed beam, and many modified forms of these structures; but the skill of no mechanic had brought forth the simple, light, and efficient combination of Hien. He first conceived and described it. The government granted to him the right to its exclusive use. The patent itself is prima facie evidence of the novelty of his combination, and if that issue was doubtful this presumption would entitle it to a construction which would sustain, in preference to one which would destroy, the grant it evidences. In 5 years after Hien disclosed his invention and obtained his patent, his brake beam was in use on 85 per cent. of the railroads controlling 80 per cent. of the cars using iron brake beams in this country, and in 11 years from the date of his patent more than 1,000,000 of his brake beams had been made and sold. It is true that the extensive use of a machine or combination which is clearly without novelty does not dispense with that statutory requirement, and that it will not alone sustain a patent. McClain v. Ortmayer, 141 U. S. 419, 428, 12 Sup. Ct. 76, 35 L. Ed. 800; Duer v. Lock Co., 149 U. S. 216, 223, 13 Sup. Ct. 850, 37 L. Ed. 707; Olin v. Timken, 155 U. S. 141, 155, 15 Sup. Ct. 49, 39 L. Ed. 100; Klein v. City of Seattle, 77 Fed. 200, 204, 23 C. C. A. 114, 118, 44 U. S. App. 741, 748. But where the question of novelty is fairly open for consideration under the law, the fact that a patented device or combination has displaced others which had previously been used to perform its function, and has gone into immediate and general use, is pregnant and persuasive evidence that it involves invention. Smith v. Vulcanite Co., 93 U. S. 486, 495, 23 L. Ed. 952; Loom Co. v. Higgins, 105 U. S. 580, 591, 26 L. Ed. 1177; Manufacturing Co. v. Adams, 151 U. S. 139, 143, 14 Sup. Ct. 295, 38 L. Ed. 103; Magowan v. Packing Co., 141 U. S. 332, 342, 12 Sup. Ct. 71, 35 L. Ed. 781; Graphophone Co. v. Leeds (C. C.) 87 Fed. 873; Topliff v. Topliff, 145 U. S. 156, 164, 12 Sup. Ct. 825, 36 L. Ed. 658. The peculiar combination of devices which distinguishes the brake beam of Hien from all those which went before it; its superior lightness, compactness, simplicity, and adjustability; the presumption of validity accompanying his patent; the fact that his combination had not suggested itself to any mechanic skilled in the art during 12 years of diligent search and effort for improvement; the facility and rapidity with which it took the place of old devices and went into immediate and extensive use as soon as it was disclosed,-all these facts con Ferge upon the mind with compelling force to prove that the strik ing and effective improvement he made was the production, not of the skill of the mechanic, but of the intuitive genius of the inventor. Thomson v. Bank, 53 Fed. 250, 3 C. C. A. 518, 10 U. S. App. 500; Griswold v. Harker, 62 Fed. 389, 393, 10 C. C. A. 435, 439, 27 U. S. App. 122, 152; Loom Co. v. Higgins, 105 U. S. 580, 591, 26 L. Ed. 1177; Consolidated Safety-Valve Co. v. Crosby Steam-Gauge & Valve Co., 113 U. S. 157, 179, 5 Sup. Ct. 513, 28 L. Ed. 939; Magowan v. Packing Co., 141 U. S. 332, 341, 343, 12 Sup. Ct. 71, 35 L. Ed. 781; In re Barbed-Wire Patent, 143 U. S. 275, 281, 283, 12 Sup. Ct. 443, 450, 36 L. Ed. 154. The combination of mechanical devices found in the second claim of the first patent to Hien was novel and useful, and the patent which secured it is valid. Turning to the first, second, and seventh claims of the second patent to Hien, we are met by the contention of counsel for the appellee that they are anticipated by the combination of his first patent, because the camber or resilience in the beam, which is the only new factor in these claims, may be produced, maintained, and adjusted by Simply turning the nuts of the former device. In opposition to this view counsel for the appellants argue that this camber in the beam or the cambered beam of the second patent is a new element, not deScribed or claimed, and not found, in the combination of the first patent, and that its addition to that combination constitutes a new and r t The atentable invention. The argument is ingenious and persuasive, but t is certainly fallacious. The camber or resilience in the beam is one Of the products or functions of the brake beam of the first patent; hot, indeed, the ultimate function which that beam was created to Perform, the function of stopping cars, but nevertheless a function of hat device, because it may be produced by the use of that combination by simply turning the nuts upon the ends of its tension rod. Now, the function or result of the operation of a machine or combination is not patentable under our laws, and therefore the camber in the beam could not be monopolized by means of a patent. means, the mechanical device, by which tha camber was produced and that alone, was capable of protection by such a franchise. Fuller v. Yentzer, 94 U. S. 288, 24 L. Ed. 103; Pencil Co. v. Howard, 20 Wall. 498, 507, 22 L. Ed. 410; Miller v. Manufacturing Co., 151 U. S. 186, 201, 14 Sup. Ct. 310, 38 L. Ed. 121; Knapp v. Morss, 150 U. S. 221, 228, 14 Sup. Ct. 81, 37 L. Ed. 1059; Carver v. Hyde, 16 Pet. 513, 519, 10 L. Ed. 1051; Le Roy v. Tatham, 14 How. 156, 14 L. Ed. 367 Corning v. Burden, 15 How. 252, 14 L. Ed. 683; Burr v. Duryee, 1 VVall. 531, 17 L. Ed. 650. Again, since a function is not patentable, a combination of functions is not; nor is a combination of mechanical devices or elements and one of the functions of that combination. It combination of mechanical elements, and of such elements alone, that may be protected by the grant of a patent, and for this reason the combination of the mechanical elements described in the first patent and the camber produced by that combination was not patentable uncler the acts of congress. Moreover, as is well argued by counsel he appellee, the scope of the first patent covers and secures to every use to which its combination can be put, both when is a atentee for the |