Page images
PDF
EPUB

AMERICAN PIN CO. v. SCHEUER et al.

(Circuit Court, S. D. New York. January 14, 1893.)

PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS-VALIDITY-NOVELTY.

Letters patent No. 300,744, issued June 17, 1884, to Elbert A. Whittelsey, for an improvement in a locking device for shawl straps, having endless bands wound upon a handle, disclosed patentable invention.

In Equity. Bill by the American Pin Company against Isaac Scheuer and others for infringment of a patent. Decree for complainant.

Sherman H. Hubbard, for plaintiff.

Louis C. Raegener, for defendants.

WHEELER, District Judge. This suit is brought upon patent No. 300,744, dated June 17, 1884, and granted to Elbert A. Whittelsey, for an improvement in shawl straps of endless bands wound upon a handle, locking the handle to hold the straps by a slide with an angular slot moving against and grasping an angular part of the spindle. The handles had been held by ratchets before, and similar slides had been used to hold spindles of locks before. The principal objection to the patent is want of invention in putting such a slide to this use. But the parts with which it is made to work here are quite different from those of a lock, and to contrive it into this place for this purpose was something more than merely putting it to a new use, and required more than the ordinary skill of a workman. defendants' slide does the same thing in about the same way. Let a decree be entered for the plaintiff.

The

NEW YORK BELTING & PACKING CO. v. NEW JERSEY CAR SPRING & RUBBER CO.

(Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. December 6, 1892.)

1. DESIGN PATENTS-LIMITATION OF CLAIM-PRIOR ART-RUBBER MATS.

Design patent No. 11,208, issued March 27, 1879, to George Woffenden, for a design for rubber mats in which kaleidoscopic, mosaic, and moire effects are produced by a series of parallel corrugations, which in different sections of the mat make angles with, or are deflected to meet, the corrugations of other sections, must, in view of the prior state of the art, as shown especially by the English patent to Fanshawe and Jacques of November 29, 1860, No. 2,935, be limited to the specific design shown in the drawing. 48 Fed. Rep. 556, affirmed.

2. SAME-INFRINGEMENT.

Although the patentee in his specifications says that the square mat exhibited in the drawing might be made "oblong or other desired shape," the patent is not infringed by an oblong mat having much the same general appearance as the mat of the patent, but in which the exact arrangement is not such as would necessarily result from an attempt to adapt the patentee's design to an oblong mat. 48 Fed. Rep. 556, reversed.

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

In Equity. Bill by the New York Belting & Packing Company against the New Jersey Car Spring & Rubber Company for infringe

ment of design patent No. 11,208, issued March 27, 1879, to George Woffenden, assignor to complainant. The circuit court on a demurrer to the bill held that the patent was invalid, (30 Fed. Rep. 785,) and from a judgment entered in pursuance thereof an appeal was taken to the supreme court of the United States. The supreme court reversed the judgment and remanded the cause, (11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 193,) and on a final hearing in the circuit court an interlocutory decree was entered sustaining the patent as to the specific design shown thercin, and declaring infringement, (48 Fed. Rep. 556.) From this decree, defendant appeals. Reversed.

Arthur v. Briesen, for appellant. isenjamin F. Lee, for appellee.

Before LACOMBE and SHIPMAN, Circuit Judges.

LACOMBE, Circuit Judge. The patent is for a design for rubber mats. The specification sets forth that

"In accordance with this design the mat gives under the light different effects, according to the relative position of the person looking at it. If the person changes his position continuously, the effects are kaleidoscopic in character. In some cases moire effects, like those of moire or watered silk, but generally mosaic effects, are produced. Stereoscopic effects, also, or the appearance of a solid body or geometric figure, may at times be given to the mat, and under proper conditions an appearance of a depression may be presented. The design consists in parallel lines of corrugations, depressions, or ridges, arranged to produce the effects as above indicated."

Then follows a reference to a drawing of the mat and a description of the same, after which the specification proceeds:

"The above forms simply one of the many ways in which my invention may be carried into effect. The corrugations in the center and outer border need not extend entirely around the mat, but in each of the sections a depression in one section may be opposite a ridge in the next. And it is not necessary that the corrugations be parallel with the sides of the mat. They may run in any direction. The ridges and depressions in the intermediate borders might be made to form different angles with each other, or with those in the other sections, or the borders might be increased or diminished in number. It will of course be understood that the effect produced, and the manner in which the appearance varies, are modified more or less by these changes. Instead of making the corrugations in the center of the mat to bend four times, they may be made to change their line of direction any desired number of times, in a regular or irregular way; that is to say, instead of having four series of parallel depressions and ridges, a number of series, less or more, arranged at various angles with each other, may be employed. I may divide the mat by a number of imaginary lines representing a projection of any geometrical figure, and in each of the sections so formed make parallel corrugations or alternate ridges and elevations, the different sets of corrugations making with each other the proper angle to give the effects sought for. To give the moire effects, I usually make the ridges and depressions undulating, while maintaining the parallel position with relation to each other. I desire, therefore, to have it understood that I do not intend to limit the design to parallel corrugations which are straight throughout any considerable portion of their length, (as represented on the drawing, for example,) but that it includes the undulating ridges and depressions, or other disposition or formation in which the corrugations alter their direction irregularly, or in which they may be straight for a certain distance, and then formed in undulations, and that it includes the corrugations arranged in concentric circles, in spirals, in zigzags, or according to any desired figure."

[ocr errors]

The claims are as follows:

"(1) A design for a rubber mat, consisting of corrugations, depressions, or ridges in parallel lines, combined or arranged relatively, substantially as described, to produce variegated, kaleidoscopic, moire, stereoscopic, or similar effects, substantially as set forth.

“(2) A design for a rubber mat, consisting of a series of parallel corrugations, depressions, or ridges, the lines of the said corrugations being deflected at one or more points, substantially as set forth.

"(3) A design for a rubber mat, consisting of a series of parallel corrugations, depressions, or ridges arranged in sections, the general line of direction of the corrugations in one section making angles with, or being deflected to meet, those of the corrugations in the contiguous or other sections, substantially as described."

It is manifest that whoever drew this specification did not intend thereby to describe and claim a design for a rubber mat. He meant to cover any and every design, whatever its pattern, device, or variety of ornamentation, which presented to the eye the kaleidoscopic, moire, or stereoscopic effects which are produced by the juxtaposition of parallel corrugations on the surface of rubber when arranged in series or sections of parallels having differing directions. What he sought to patent was in substance not a design at all, but the product resulting from corrugating the surface of rubber, so that whatever designs might be formed from such corrugations should present the kaleidoscopic and other described effects. It may be doubted whether the alleged invention, as he understood it, was properly the subject of a design patent at all; but that question need not be decided. The circuit judge who sustained the demurrer held that "although there is an illustration in the drawing, and although each claim is for a design 'substantially as described,' the language of the specification is carefully expressed so as not to restrict the claims to the design shown in the drawing, but so that the first claim shall include every variety of design which can be produced by the arrangement of corrugations, depressions, or ridges in parallel lines;" and that "none of the claims can be limited to a design which produces any definite or concrete impression to the eye." 30 Fed. Rep. 786.

The supreme court held that the circuit judge was right in holding that the first claim was altogether too broad to be sustained, and approved of the reasons given for that opinion. As to the other claims, however, that court held that they "may fairly be regarded as confining the patentee to the specific design exhibited in his patent and shown in the drawing." 11 Sup. Ct. Rep. 195. The decree sustaining the demurrer was therefore overruled, so that the question whether the single design thus shown was in fact new might be determined upon evidence as to the state of the art. The opinion of the supreme court closes with an intimation (obiter) that the peculiar kaleidoscopic effects produced by the impression of parallel lines forming a particular design on the surface of rubber "may constitute a quality of excellence which will give to the design a specific character and value, and distinguish it from other similar designs that have not such an effect." Id. The circuit court, “with some hesitation, reached the conclusion that under the intimation of the supreme court the patent [should] be sustained." 48 Fed. Rep. 558.

Subsequently to the decision of the supreme court the holder of the patent filed a disclaimer to the first claim, and to the words in the specification, "in concentric circles." The proof shows that the patentee was not the first to arrange parallel corrugations on the surface of rubber, grouped in sections and deflected so as to produce changes of light and shade as the position of the observer shifts relatively to the object, thus giving the kaleidoscopic effects described in the patent. An English patent to Fanshawe and Jacques, No. 2,935, of November 29, 1860, relates to rubber brushes with flexible rubbing surfaces in the shape of projecting ridges. These ridges are arranged in various designs, one (Fig. 3 on the drawing annexed to that patent, and herewith reproduced) being substantially of the same pattern as the central panel of the drawing in complainant's patent; another (Fig. 4) being of the same pattern as the central panel of defendant's Fig. 3.

[ocr errors]

Fig. 4.

[graphic]
[graphic]

mat. Although undoubtedly intended to be attractive to the eye of the purchaser, the production of designs pleasing to the taste was not the immediate object sought to be attained by the maker of the bath brushes. Still, from the description in the patent, from an examination of the drawings of the brush surfaces, (there are several varieties of them shown in the English patent,) and from what is known as to the shifting of light and shade on the surface of a corrugated object viewed from different positions, it might be fairly inferred that in these bath brushes there would be found the "active power of producing a physical effect upon the rays of light so as to produce different shades and colors, according to the direction in which the various corrugated lines are viewed," which was referred to in the dictum of the supreme court as a feature of the patent in suit, which, perhaps, "presents a novel aspect." But this conclusion is not a mere matter of inference. Complainant put in evidence a bath brush of the design shown in Fig. 4, supra, reproduced in rubber, and proved by its expert that it was a correct representation of the thing shown in the English patent. The ridges or corrugations of the brush are thinner, higher, and more flexible than those of complainant's mat, and the

design is not the particular design shown in the drawing of the patent in suit; but when the brush and the central panel of complainant's mat are laid side by side, and looked at from different points of view, precisely the same variations of light and shade, of tone, tint, and color, sweep over their surfaces. In the face of that English patent, it was not open to the patentee of complainant's mat to claim broadly the production of kaleidoscopic and similar effects by such an arrangement of parallel corrugations on the surface of rubber, to claim anything more than the mere design or pattern shown in his drawing. All that was open to him was such an arrangement of the corrugations as would produce a novel design, as the supreme court defines that word in its opinion in this case, viz.:

"A thing of distinct and fixed individuality of appearance-a representation, a picture, a delineation, a device [which] addresses itself to the senses and taste, and produces pleasure or admiration in its contemplation." 11 Sup. Ct Rep. 195.

The drawing of the patent, which represents a mat embodying the design, is as follows:

[graphic][subsumed]

-And it is thus described in the specification:

"It is divided into a number of sections, a, b, c, d, the corrugations or depressions and ridges in those represented by the same letter being parallel. Thus, in the center and outer border formed by the sections a, b, the corrugations extend around the mat parallel with its outer edge and with each other. At the points where each depression crosses the diagonals drawn from corner to corner of the mat through the center it makes a right angle with its previous path. In the intermediate borders the corrugations in the sections c are arranged at an angle with those in the sections d, and in both they form an angle with the corrugations in the sections a, b. By the different shading of the sections attempt has been made to represent the mosaic effects produced, which, it will be understood, vary like a kaleidoscope as the observer shifts his position."

« PreviousContinue »