Cary v. Wolff
| Decision Date | 07 February 1885 |
| Citation | 24 F. 139 |
| Parties | CARY and others v. WOLFF and others. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Robert H. Duncan and Samuel A. Duncan, for orators.
Charles D. Adams and Frederick H. Betts, for defendants.
This suit is brought upon letters patent No. 116,266, dated June 27, 1871, and granted to the orator Cary, for an improvement in mode of tempering springs. The specification sets forth that the invention relates to spiral springs usually made in conical form, of steel wire, used in upholstering chairs sofas, and for bed-bottoms; describes the manner of making them by coiling and forcing hard-drawn steel wire to the proper shape, whereby the outer portion of the wire is stretched, and the inner portion crushed, and its strength elasticity, and durability greatly reduced; states the discovery that subjecting them to a degree of heat known as spring-temper heat, about 600 deg., more or less, for about eight minutes, will restore the wire to its normal condition by producing a complete homogeneity of the metal, and greatly increases their value. The claim is for the method of tempering furniture or other coiled springs substantially as described. The defendants subject such springs, after being coiled, to a degree of heat beyond the range of what is known among artisans in tempering steel as spring-temper heat, and beyond 600 deg., for the purpose of restoring the elasticity and strength of the wire to its normal condition. They set up want of patentable novelty in the invention, and deny infringement of the patent, as defenses to the suit.
If the patent was for the process merely of tempering steel by merely subjecting it to heat it would apparently be anticipated in several ways. That process was known to experts and artisans and described with particularity in books before the date of this invention. The process of the patent does not merely add temper as a quality to steel which did not have it before; it restores the lost strength and elasticity of the wire consequent to the displacement of the particles of which it is composed by the process of making it into springs. The discovery was that the application of heat would effect that restoration, which is a different thing from tempering. Subjection to heat for casting and tempering and to produce malleability and for various other purposes was well enough known, but it was not known for this purpose until it was applied to this kind of springs in their peculiarly weakened state. The discovery was of a new application of an old process which produces a new and highly useful result. Wire bells for clocks were...
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Carnegie Steel Co. v. Cambria Iron Co.
...result from such application. It therefore comes within the spirit of Whitney v. Mowry, 2 Bond, 45, Fed. Cas. No. 17,592, and Cary v. Wolff, 24 F. 139, and authorities. In Mowry v. Whitney, 14 Wall. 640 (a case, by the way, involving the wheel practice of Whitney), is found in Mr. Justice S......
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Cary v. Domestic Spring-Bed Co.
...NIXON, J. The validity of the complainant's patent was passed upon and sustained by his honor, Judge WHEELER, in the case of Cary v. Wolff, 24 F. 139, pending for several in the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of New York. Judge ACHESON, in the Western district ......
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Cary v. Lovell Mfg. Co.
...on final hearing, and after full consideration, by the circuit court for the Southern district of New York, in the case of Cary v. Wolff, 24 F. 139. In the course of opinion, Judge WHEELER there says: 'The process of the patent does not merely add temper as a quality to steel which did not ......
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Carey v. Miller
...hundred degrees more or less,' for about eight minutes. The patent has been several times before the courts, (Cary v. Wolff, 24 F. 139, 141; Cary Spring-Bed Co., 27 F. 299, 31 F. 344,) and has been sustained to the extent of covering such process, 'when the springs are kept below red heat. ......