Opinion of the Court. 257 U.S. Dickinson invention, the cancelation does not seem to us important or to require a narrowing of Dickinson's claim for the described and indispensable coöperation of three or more pins to produce that movement. The Court of Appeals bases something of its conclusion in this case on the alleged inoperativeness of the Dickinson machine. As to this, we find no reason in the record for disturbing the finding of the District Judge, with the working model and the witnesses before him, supported as he is by the finding of the Patent Office and the District Court of Appeals on extended evidence on this very point before them. It is not necessary, in order to sustain a generic patent, to show that the device is a commercial success. The machine patented may be imperfect in its operation; but if it embodies the generic principle, and works, that is, if it actually and mechanically performs, though only in a crude way, the important function by which it makes the substantial change claimed for it in the art, it is enough. Telephone Cases, 126 U. S. 1, 535; Mergenthaler Linotype Co. v. Press Publishing Co., 57 Fed. 502, 505. The Patent Office treated the Dickinson invention as a primary or generic one. So did the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia (25 App. D. C. 316), Judge Rose of the District Court of Maryland (Hildreth v. Lauer & Suter Co., 208 Fed. 1005), and the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Fourth Circuit (Lauter & Suter Co. v. Hildreth, 219 Fed. 753). In this view, after a consideration of the record, and for the reasons stated, we concur. The history of the art shows that Dickinson took the important but long delayed and therefore not obvious step from the pulling of candy by two hands guided by a human mind and will to the performance of the same function by machine. The ultimate effect of this step with the mechanical or patentable improvements of his device was to make candy pulling more sanitary, to re 27. Opinion of the Court. duce its cost to one-tenth of what it had been before him, and to enlarge the field of the art. He was, therefore, a pioneer. We come now to the question of infringement. In the Langer patent, applied for in 1916 and issued in 1917, which the alleged infringement embodies, there is a socalled "floating puller," which is carried through a course of travel corresponding in form to the figure 8, and around fixed supporting pins arranged concentrically within the two circular portions of figure 8. The candy is pulled by the floating puller and alternately carried thereby around the fixed supporting pins. Instead of having Dickinson's single stationary pin and two other pins which move relatively to it and to one another, the machine of the Langer patent has two stationary pins and a third one which moves relatively to both of them in an actual and rigid figure 8. Taking the first claim of Dickinson's patent as it reads, one can trace every element of it in the Langer machine. We find there a plurality of oppositely-disposed candy hooks or supports. The candy-puller is found in the movable pin of Langer, and a relative in-and-out motion in the pulling process is palpably present. Both Dickinson and Langer in their specifications characterize the path of the candy under the operation of the hooks as being along a course of travel corresponding in form to the figure 8. The Circuit Court of Appeals found, however, that the in-and-out movement of the Langer patent was different from the in-and-out movement of the Dickinson patent, in that it was a true figure 8 in the former, whereas in the Dickinson patent the candy follows a path of a series of V's and not a true figure 8 path at all. We differ from the Court of Appeals in this view. The actual movement of the candy in the Langer patent, even though the movable pin follows a fixed path of figure 8, forms a succession of V's closely resembling the V's Opinion of the Court. 257 U.S. of the Dickinson patent, so that in each the path of the candy is better described as an in-and-out movement than as a figure 8. The arrangement of the hooks by Langer is better than Dickinson's, but the principle of their operation is the same. The counsel for the respondent, however, urge that the trough, not shown in the alleged infringement, is a necessary element of Dickinson's claim, because without it the batch of candy could not be supported against gravity, and he suggests no alternative. Dickinson says in his specifications that he shows a trough for supporting the candy, but any suitable support may be used which has the capacity for supporting the candy while it is being operated upon. Two of the machines, the Jenner and the first Thibodeau, which were in interference in the Patent Office with Dickinson, had the pins set, not in an upright but in a horizontal position, and thus the candy in their machines needed no trough support but rested on the pins themselves, and this Langer has adopted. Doubtless this was an improvement which was perhaps patentable, but none of the tribunals in the Patent Office proceedings deemed this to be more than an improved equivalent of the trough which did not take these machines out of the domination of the claim awarded to Dickinson. As the Dickinson patent is a generic patent, the doctrine of broad equivalents properly applies here. Morley Sewing Machine Co. v. Lancaster, 129 U. S. 263, 273; Miller v. Eagle Manufacturing Co., 151 U. S. 186, 207; Paper Bag Patent Case, 210 U. S. 405. The Circuit Court of Appeals held that the issuing of the Langer patent, after the Dickinson patent, raised the presumption of a patentable difference between that patent and the Dickinson patent, and against infringement. It is not necessary for us, however, to discuss that question, for we think that whatever presumption against infringement may attach to the issuing of the second patent, if any, the evidence here is quite sufficient to overcome it. The decree of the Circuit Court of Appeals is reversed, and that of the District Court is affirmed. UNITED STATES v. SACKS. ERROR TO THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK. No. 48. Argued October 20, 1921. Decided November 7, 1921. 1. Under the Act of September 24, 1917, amended September 24, 1918, cc. 56, 176, 40 Stat. 291, 966, authorizing the Secretary of the Treasury to borrow money and to issue therefor, at such price or prices and upon such terms and conditions as he might determine, war savings certificates in amounts of not more than $100 to any one person at any one time, and of which no one person at any one time should hold more than $1,000, and further providing that the Secretary might issue stamps, under such regulations and upon such terms and conditions as he might prescribe, to evidence payments for or on account of the certificates, the Secretary was empowered to issue non-transferable certificates valid only when bearing one or more such stamps and when endorsed with the name of its owner. Pp. 39, 41. 2. War savings certificates and war savings certificate stamps, issued pursuant to the act and the regulations, are obligations of the United States within the meaning of §§ 148 and 151 of the Criminal Code. P. 40. 3. One who tears war savings certificate stamps from a war savings certificate issued to another, with intent to use them apart from the certificate bearing the purchaser's name, alters the obligation with intent to defraud (the United States) in the sense of Criminal Code, § 148, since the purposes of the Act of September 24, 1917, supra, and the conditions provided to insure them, will thus be fraudulently defeated. P. 42. 4. Possession of part of such certificate and attached stamps, with intent to defraud the United States as above, is a violation of Criminal Code, § 151. P. 42. Reversed. WRIT of error under the Criminal Appeals Act, to review a judgment quashing an indictment. See post, 42. Mr. William C. Herron, with whom Mr. Assistant Attorney General Stewart was on the brief, for the United States. Mr. Joseph A. Seidman, for defendant in error, submitted. MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA delivered the opinion of the court. This case presents for consideration an indictment in three counts for the violation, respectively, of §§ 148 and 151 of the Criminal Code of the United States, as dependent upon the construction of an act of Congress to which we shall refer. The first two counts charge that Sacks did, " with intent to defraud, alter an obligation of the United States, to wit, a war savings certificate of the United States of the series of 1918, . . in that [he] did . . tear from the face of said war savings certificate two war savings certificate stamps of the United States of the series of 1918, thereto before attached." The third count charges Sacks with having in his possession, with intent to defraud the United States, and with intent to pass and sell the same, an altered obligation of the United States, to wit, a portion of a war savings certificate of the United States of the series of 1918, with three war savings certificate stamps thereto attached, in that the portion which he had and kept in his possession had been torn from a whole war savings certificate. The indictment is illustrated by having examples of the certificates attached. They certify, subject to the terms and conditions expressed thereon, that the owner will be entitled to receive January 1, 1923, in respect to each |