This is a bill in equity filed by the appellees, May 15, 1883, to restrain the alleged infringement of reissued letters patent No. 4,372, issued to Nelson W. Green, for a driven well. The cause was heard, by stipulation between the parties, upon an agreed statement of facts set out in the record, as follows:
'For the purpose of saving the expense of taking testimony, it is hereby agreed, by and between the parties hereto, that the above cause, and the others hereinafter referred to, may be tried upon the following agreed statement of facts; said statement to be accepted as proof of the facts recited as fully and completely as if the same had been duly and formally proven:
'It is agreed that Nelson W. Green was the patentee of a new and valuable process in the construction of wells, and claimed to be its first and original inventor, for which process he received original letters patent of the United States, No. 73,425, on the fourteenth day of January, 1868, and for which reissued letters patent No. 4,372 were granted to Nelson W. Green on May 9, 1871, the application for which having been filed February 24, 1871. That the title to the letters patent sued on for the state of Ohio is in the complainants. That the defendants have had in use on their farm for the past seven or eight years one or more driven wells, which wells were put down for the defendants by an ordinary well-driver in the following manner: A tube, of which the lower portion was perforated with small holes, and the lower end provided with a point, was driven into the ground until it projected into the water, without removing the earth upwards, as in boring. The water then entered the tube through the perforations, and was pumped up through the tube by an ordinary pump. That the defendants have never driven wells for themselves except as above described or for other purposes; never have sold, or offered for sale, driven wells, or the materials for driving them, but have simply used their own wells for their personal use on their farms.