Hoke Engraving Plate Co. v. Schraubstadter
| Decision Date | 21 September 1891 |
| Parties | HOKE ENGRAVING PLATE CO. v. SCHRAUBSTADTER. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri |
Benjamin F. Rex, for complainant.
Geo. H Knight and Wm. M. Eccles, for defendant.
In this case defendant admits infringement,-- not infringement of certain specific claims, but infringement generally therefore, the burden is on the defendant to show the invalidity of all the claims of the patent. He has not succeeded in doing so to my satisfaction. The third, fifth sixth, and seventh claims, in my judgment, have not been successfully assailed, and are accordingly upheld. For reasons that were to some extent indicated at the trial, I have concluded that the first and second claims ought not to have been allowed. They are too broad,-- broader, in fact than the invention. They are so drawn as to cover all processes of making a certain kind of 'engraving plate,' whereas the inventor has only discovered and described one process. Furthermore, the new article of manufacture claimed is not new, except in the sense that the inventor has employed a new ingredient to form the soft, friable coating of the plate on which the engraving is done. The two claims in question are as follows:
'I claim-- (1) as a new article of manufacture, an engraving plate having a base-plate with a smooth, hard, upper surface and a soft, friable coating of minute particles of powdered matter, loosely bonded together, and having those particles of the coating next the base-plate more strongly bonded to it than the particles above them are bonded either to them or to each other; (2) as a new article of manufacture, an engraving plate composed of a base-plate having a smooth, hard, upper surface, a soluble mineral bond, and a soft, friable coating of fine earthy particles, loosely bonded together, and more strongly bonded to the base-plate by said soluble mineral bond, so that the particles of the coating next the base-plate adhere thereto more strongly than the particles above them adhere to them or to each other, as and for the purposes described.'
It will be observed that the patentee claims substantially every kind of engraving plate having a coating composed of minute particles of powdered earthy matter, the particles whereof have the property of adhering more strongly to the base-plate than they adhere to each other. In his t specification however, he only describes one way in which such a coating can be formed, and that is by mixing...
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