DRETT v. qUlliUnD.
5Z9
seven years what is now complained of, and that, in 1880, the plaintiff sued the defendant at law in the circuit court of the United States for the district of Massachusetts for the infringement of the patent now sued on, and that such suit at law, after proceeding to a declaration, has been allowed by the plaintiff to remain unprosecuted. It appears that what the defendant did before such suit at law was brought was of the same character with what it has done since. The plated articles it now has on hand for sale as parts of sewing-machines must have been plated by it since such suit at law was brought. The plaintiff does not plate, but licenses others to plate. It is shown that the defendant's license fee would be about $300 a year. That would be the amount of profits or damages to be recovered by the plaintiff. The defendant is shown to be pecuniarily responsible. Under the foregoing circumstances, there ought not to be an injunction before final hearing.
BRETT, Adm'x, etc., v. QUINTARD, Adm'r, etc. (Uircuit Uourt, D. Uonnecticut. PATENTS Fon
August 16, 1883.)
The sixth claim of the Henry A. \Vells "hat-hod.v patent" held to have been Infringed by the manner in Which defendant's intestate removed the hat from the revolving cone in the manufacture of hlts, and a decree for an accounting granted.
In Equity. E. N. Dickerson, for plaintiff. John H. Perry and Henry T. Rlake, for detenaant. J. The question of the infringement by the defendant's intestate ot the sixth claim of the Henry A. Wells "hat-body patent" has again been heard upon the evidence introduced by the defendant. It is proved that the manner in which Mr. Brown removed the bat from the revolving cone was the same as that described by Prof. Trowbridge upon the seventh page of the printed testimony. Tile additional fact appears that 72 bats are plunged in the water each working hour, and consequently that the covering cloths are immeriied in very hot water as often as once in each minute. It is to be remembered that in this examination the question of infringement only is at issue; all questions of the validity of the claim or of the no,elty of the alleged invention are foreclosed. The defendant has, therefore, introduced the William Ponsford English patent of 1838, and, quoting the decision of the supreme court upon the Wells process patent, (Burr v. Dur/lce, 1 Wall. 531,) that the \Yells process for remo\'ing the bat from the cone was the same as the Ponsford v.17,no.G-31
FEDERAL REPORTER.
process, says that the state of .the ad at the date of .the Wells invention was such thfit the advance in the present Wells reissue over the Ponsford invention was trivial, and simply consisted in the use of a roller of cloth just taken from a kettle of very hot water, in distinction from the use of a wet and warm cloth cowl, and· that Brown neither used a roller nor took his cloths freshly from hot water, and that, therefore, there was no infringement. The Ponsford process was as follows: . ,,'When the hair has lJeen received on one of th()se perforated cones or moulds to a suffiCient thickness, a cowl of linen or t1all-nel is to lJe drawn gently over it, and then a hollow perforateu cover of copper, or any other suitable metal, is to lJe dropped over the cowl."
The whole is then immersed in a vat of boiling water· . The last Wells reissue says: .' The attendant takes from a kettle of hot water a piece of felt or other cloth rolled upon a roller, and applies one end of it to the surface of the lJat, still held by the pressure of the surrounding air, and as the cone rotates the felt cloth winds from the roller onto the bat; and as the ti p of the cone is semi-spherical, and this cloth cannot be con veniently exten(led over the tip, another piece of cloth, also taken from hot water, is applied to tIle tip of the bat."
The sixth claim is: "In combination with a pervious conE', prOVided with an exhausting mechanism,substantially as described, the covering cloth wet with hot water, substantially as and for the purpose specified."
The purpose was twofold-to hold the fibers upon the cone, and to partially felt the bat. By Ponsford's patent, after the bat had been formed upon the cone, a cowl was drawn over the bat. Of cpurse, as the cowl had recently been plunged in hot water, it was wet and warin.. By the Wells patent, a cloth wet witli 'hot water is wound around the bat, after it has been formed, and while the cone is revoh'ing by the revolution of the cone. The distinction between the two methods seems to me to be without a serious patentable difference. In the one case, a cowl or hood is drawn over the bat; in the other, a cloth is wound around the bat by the revolution of th'l cone. But, as I have before said, the question of validity is not before me. The sixth claim of the ,Yells patent covers, in combination with a perviolls cone and an exhaust mechanism, a cloth upon a roller taken from a kettle of hot water and wound around the bat as the cone 10tates. In combination with a pervious cone and an exhaust mechanism, Mr. Brown wound around the bat, as the cone rotated, an unrolled or unfolded cloth, wet and warm, and taken within a minute from a tub of hot water. If the sixth claim is valid, I think that infringement is proved. Let there be a decree for an accounting in respect to the USIj of the sixth claim.
YALE LOCK JlIANUF'a' CO. YALE LOCK MANUF'G
V.
BERKSHIRE NAT. DANK.
'(;,31'
ancl others v. BERKSHIRE NAT. BANK and another August 14, 1883.)
'(Oircuit Oourt D. JIORS'ICht:sctls. PA'fENT-RET8SUES
Nos. 7,947 AND 8,550, Claim 3 of reissued patent No. 7,947, grnnted to .Jamcs Sargcnt, and all of the claims exccpt claims 1 and 7 in reissued patent No, 8,.',50, granted to Sam.: uel A. Little for" improvements in locks for safes and vuults," /teld void.
In Equity. Causten Browne, Edmund JVitmore, and George 1'. Curtis, for complainants. E. N. Dickerson and Thomas A. Logan, for defendants. LOWELL, J. 'rhis suit is brought to establish and enforce the rights of the plaintiffs as the owners of the two patents for improvements in locks for safes and vaults, reissue 8,550, to Samuel A. Lit. tIe, and reissue 7,947, to James Sargent. The Little patent was reissued three times for the benefit of the plaintiffs, and its claims have been enlarged in number from 3 to 17. It is probable that the motive of this action was to enjoin the use of locks like the defendants'; and, if this intent were decisive, the reissue must be held void. The plaintiffs contend that intent and act must concur, as in other penal cases; that Little was the first person to make a time-lock, with adjustable devices for controlling the time of locking as well as that of unlocking a door; that this invention was clearly described and claimed in the original specification; and insist that claims 1 and 7 are saved by the operation of this rule. These claims were sustained by Judge in rale Lock 11Ianuf'g Co. v. Noncich Nat. Bank, 19 Blatchf. 123, (S. C. 6 FED. REP. 377,) and all the questions of novelty and patentability were passed upon. With his opinion I fully agree, and I refer to the report of that case for an able, thorough, and satisfactory digcussion of those questions. When the case in Connecticut was decided, MilicI' v. Bridgeport Brass Co. 104 U. S. 250, had not been published; but it was said in the argument before me that J udge had had his attention called to that decision by a motion to dissolve the injunction in Connecticut, and had refused to dissolve it. This point, though a difficult one, I decide in conformity with Judge action, for the reason that in a patent like the original patent of Little, it would be proper to construe his second claim somewhat broadly, and so as to reach the substituted adjustable devices and their connection with the "dog," in the lock of the defendants in that case, which were substantially like those in question here. The Hall lock has, besides the de,ices a bo,e referred to, an arrangement entirely different from any sho'\\n in the case in Connecticut. The plaintiffs ha,e two time mo,ements to control the le,er which controls the "dog," and the defendant has but one.' The seventh