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the date of the first use by that company of inwardly-turned bends extending down practically the whole length of the section.

The use of the inwardly-turned bend or crimp in the patented structure is more than an ordinary mechanical expedient to reduce the size of the inner telescopic member, and thus to enable the same size pipe to be used for both the entering and the entered telescopic walls. A crimp for that purpose is found in prior patents in the closely allied art of stovepipes. In Scherer's device, however, the crimp also enables the telescopic fitting to be more readily effected, by making the walls of the inner pipe yielding, and thus capable of being temporarily pressed bodily inwards without injury to the walls or change in the spaced relation of the outer and inner walls.

This function of the crimp is of peculiar significance and value in the art to which Scherer contributed. Double wall hot-air pipe is uniformly made rectangular in shape in order that it may be installed between the studding in the walls of buildings. While round pipe, such as stovepipe, by reason of its form, can resist considerable compression, rectangular pipe is weaker and more liable to lose the regularity of its form, and to become permanently bent in when subjected to compressive force. For this reason spacers are usually employed, if not required, with flat pipe, when the crimp or inwardly-turned corner is not utilized in order to insure effective insulation.

In view of the peculiar utility of the crimp on Scherer's structure, the Patent Office was fully warranted in allowing claims 3, 4, and 5. Defendant's device has the same crimp, with the same purpose and effect. Infringement is clearly established.

The decree must be reversed as to claims 3, 4, and 5, and the cause remanded for further proceedings in accordance with the views herein expressed.

UNIVERSAL DRAFT GEAR ATTACHMENT CO. v. BUCKEYE STEEL

CASTINGS CO.

(Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. August 1, 1917.)

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The Brown patent, No. 781,127, for a car coupler, held not infringed. 2. PATENTS 328-VALIDITY AND INVENTION-Car CoupleR.

The Jackson patent, No. 946,603, for a car coupler, held void for lack of invention in view of the prior art.

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern Division of the Southern District of Ohio; John E. Sater, Judge.

Suit in equity by the Universal Draft Gear Attachment Company against the Buckeye Steel Castings Company. Decree for defendant, and complainant appeals. Affirmed.

Louis K. Gillson, of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

A. W. Bright, of Washington, D. C., and John P. Bartlett, of New York City, for appellee.

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Before WARRINGTON, KNAPPEN, and DENISON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. This is a suit for infringement of two patents upon car coupling apparatus. The appellant alleged infringement of claim 3 of the Brown patent, No. 781,127, of January 31, 1905, and claim 2 of the Jackson patent, No. 946,603, of January 18, 1910. These claims are in the margin.' The district court found no infringement, and dismissed the bill.

[1] A car coupler is a familiar apparatus. Every structure involved in this case is simple and clear. The art is extremely crowded, and the steps taken by the patentees were, at the best, limited. The case involves no new or doubtful questions of law, but only the application. of common rules. We see no object in elaborated descriptions or extensive discussion, and we think a mere statement of our conclusions will be sufficient. Claim 3 of the Brown patent calls, among others, for two distinct and independent elements. It specifies that the couplerhead and the spring-casing shall be "detachably connected," and that the bar or key which connects the casing and the draft-irons shall "also lock" this detachable connection. Here are two distinct functions, engaging two parts and locking the engagement. The connection between coupler and casing is by a bayonet joint, and when this engagement has been completed by partial rotation of the inserted member, the joint resists a blow or a pull. The only trouble is that there may be accidental turning of one in the other, whereby the effective engagement will be broken. The bar, by passing through slots in both parts, locks against inadvertent rotation. The bar cannot be the contemplated means of connection, because one of the slots is openended, and if it were not for the bayonet joint, the coupler and casing would pull apart. In the defendant's form, there is no detachable engagement, save as any two parts which are bolted together are detachably engaged while the bolt is in position. Neither is there any lock, save as parts capable of detachable engagement may be considered locked together while they are engaged. Defendant has a single bolt passing through those parts of the draft-irons and the coupler-head and the casing which lie in the same transverse plane. We are satisfied that this bolt cannot be considered both the detachable connection and the lock of the Brown patent. We might find the

1 Claim 3 of the Brown patent: In a combined coupling and draft mechanism, the combination of a shell or casing containing the spring or tension mechanism, a coupling-head detachably connected with said shell, and a bar connecting the said shell with the draft-irons, the said bar also locking the coupling-head to said shell, substantially as described.

Claim 2 of the Jackson patent: In combination with a draft rigging having transverse follower plates, of a coupler yoke in the form of an elongated loop with parallel sides that embraces and rests on the follower plates and with transverse stops adapted to contact with the several follower plates, a pair of side wings parallel to the plane of the loop extending from the forward end of the yoke having transversely crowned inner faces, a coupler having an inner end lying between and rocking on the side walls, and a horizontal key passing through the wings and loosely engaging a slot through the inner end of the coupler.

detachable connection or we might find the lock, but we cannot find both, except in the sense that one is always the other; and the claim is not entitled to a breadth of construction reaching that situation.

[2] It is practically conceded-at least, it is clear-that claim 2 of the Jackson patent recites a combination which is identical with earlier combinations, unless for the provision that the side wings should have "transversely crowned inner faces." The coupler shank passed back between the sides of a yoke or inclosing structure. It could not be closely held therein because it must rock laterally when the train went around a curve. Accordingly, the side faces of this yoke were provided with inwardly and laterally projecting crowns or convexities which made contact with the sides of the coupler shank opposite to each other. The result was that the coupler shank would rock one way or the other, resting upon one of these points, and space was thereby provided for the forward part and the rear part of the shank to move laterally and oppositely. We see no possibility of attributing to this expedient the merit of invention. The old corresponding open-ended frames or casings had always been provided with flaring mouths to allow for this rocking by all kinds of coupler shanks, and even by the old style links. Of course, if the shank was so hung that its rear part moved laterally in the opposite direction from the lateral motion of its forward part, space must be given in which the rear part could move; and to provide this space was what Jackson did. The involved language of the claim does not raise to a higher power that ordinary degree of mechanical skill which alone is involved. The decree below is affirmed.

PATENTS

HOBBS PATENT CO. v. ATLAS SPECIALTY MFG. CO.
(Circuit Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit. April 10, 1917.)

No. 2440.

328-VALIDITY-PRIOR USE-COVER FOR RADIATOR.

The Hobbs patent, No. 901,616, for an insulating cover for automobile radiator and hood, held void for prior public use by others.

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Eastrn Division of the Northern District of Illinois.

Suit in equity by the Hobbs Patent Company against the Atlas Specialty Manufacturing Company. Decree for defendant, and complainant appeals. Affirmed.

George L. Wilkinson, of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

Frank T. Brown and Arthur L. Sprinkle, both of Chicago, Ill., for appellee.

Before BAKER, MACK, and ALSCHULER, Circuit Judges.

MACK, Circuit Judge. This appeal is taken from the decree of the District Court, holding Hobbs patent, No. 901,616, granted October 20,

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1908, upon an application filed February 14, 1908, void for want of patentable novelty.

The patent in suit is for a heat-insulating cover for the hood and radiator of an automobile. The cover has flaps extending across the outer front surface of the radiator. These may be fastened together when the engine is not running. They may also be flung back when the machine is in motion, to allow the heat to radiate, and to prevent the boiling of the water in the radiator.

A careful reading of the record but confirms the view, expressed at the oral argument, that the evidence clearly and convincingly establishes the defense of prior use. Covers substantially like the patented devices and made by others are shown to have been in use at least a year prior to Hobbs' reduction to practice. His earliest established date is that of the filing of the application.

A brief statement of some of the evidence will suffice. C. P. Kimball & Co., of Chicago, at one time made a radiator cover for J. M. Harris, then of Chicago. A book kept by the repair department of the Kimball Company, in which the labor cost of various items was recorded, shows, under the account of J. M. Harris, "Cover for radiator, $2.50." From the number of the account and the dates appearing in the book, it is clear that this work was done in 1905. The entry was identified by the carriage trimmer who made the cover, and who has now become the superintendent of the repair department, by the foreman who made the entry, and by the then superintendent of the repair department, who placed at the time a notation thereon. The only possible question is whether this Harris cover was merely a plain piece of material fitting over the front of the radiator and attached thereto by cotter pins, or whether it extended over the entire radiator and had an adjustable curtain in front. A price list book kept by the trimmer gives the labor cost for a cover, which is there termed "a cooler cover with roll-up curtains," as $2.50. The labor involved in making a cover with an adjustable front curtain was greater, and the cost appreciably higher, than that of a cover consisting of a plain piece of pantasote fitted over and attached to the front of the radiator. Both the trimmer and the foreman unhesitatingly testified, from the labor charge made, that the Harris cover was such a radiator cover with an adjustable front curtain, similar to one made up for the purposes of the trial and introduced as an exhibit. Nothing in their testimony or in the record tends to cast doubt on the reliability of the inferences which these witnesses, having personal knowledge of the business, drew from this cost item.

Their independent recollection, so far as they had any, is that Kimball & Co. manufactured these accessories before 1908. The carriage trimmer was almost positive that he had made a radiator cover with an adjustable front curtain in 1904. Another employé testified that the company was making covers of this type when he entered its employ in March, 1907. The testimony of all four of the witnesses is straightforward and unimpeached. They are old, respectable, and trustworthy employés of the Kimball Company, and on the record are entirely disinterested.

244 F.-12

While search might have been instituted in New York, whither Harris had moved, for him or for the cover, yet in view of the undisputed testimony that the life of such a cover is four or five years, the failure to produce the original cover or to account for its absence does not materially weaken this defense. The destruction of Kimball's office books in a disastrous fire a few years before the hearing prevented the offering of any additional evidence that they might have furnished as to the character or selling price of the Harris cover.

The only feature of the patented cover that this Harris cover does not anticipate is that part which extends over the hood. There is some evidence that the Kimball Company was also making hood covers before 1908. But, rejecting that evidence as insufficient, and assuming that some invention over the use of lap robes is involved in Hobbs' "tailored to fit" hood cover, the Hobbs' patent is invalidated by reason of the prior use of such a cover by the Chicago Carriage & Trimming Company. The books of that company conclusively establish that such a cover for an automobile hood was made for a customer on November 13, 1907. There is other evidence in the record of a prior use, which, however, we deem it unnecessary to comment upon. Decree affirmed.

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The Gess patent, No: 986,379, for a winding cone, is void for lack of patentable invention and anticipation, the alleged improvement shown by inturning the apex end of the cone and smoothing and rounding the same to prevent the cutting or breaking of the yarn or thread being something which would naturally occur to any skilled mechanic familiar with the art, and which had previously been used and described in prior patents.

In Equity. Suit by Henry L. Tiffany against the Paper Products Company, Incorporated, and by same complainant against the Noble Manufacturing Company. On final hearing. Decrees for defendant. Emery, Booth, Janney & Varney, of Boston, Mass., and Irwin & Tison, of Cedartown, Ga., for plaintiff.

John M. Coit, of Washington, D. C., and Bunn & Trawick, of Cedartown, Ga., for defendant.

NEWMAN, District Judge. This is a suit brought by the plaintiff against the defendant for infringement of letters patent No. 986,379 of the United States granted to one Charles Gess on March 7, 1911, upon application filed January 3, 1911, which was duly assigned by said patentee to the plaintiff by an instrument in writing, dated December 29, 1910, and recorded in the Patent Office of the United States on February 8, 1911.

For other cases see same topic & KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests & Indexes

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