Appeal
from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern
Division of the Northern District of Illinois; Kenesaw M
Landis, Judge.
Appellee
filed his bill for injunctional and other relief, which was
granted. This appeal involves claims 1, 5, 6, 9, and 10 of
patent No. 920,490, granted May 4, 1909, to A. C. McWilliams
for a panel board for electrical power distribution. The
claims read as follows, viz
The device is described in the specification, beginning at
line 31:
'The
apparatus here illustrated is arranged for a three-wire
system, although the invention is equally applicable to a
two-wire system. The supply mains a, b, c, which are
respectively positive, neutral and negative, are adapted to
be connected respectively to the positive, neutral and
negative bus bars d, f, e, through the switch g in the
ordinary manner.
'The
parts are mounted on the board A, which may consist of
marble or any other suitable insulating material. In the
drawings are shown six pairs of meter circuit terminals h1,
h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6, each one of which is adapted to
have a meter H connected thereto. One of each pair of said
terminals is connected to a main, the remaining terminal
being connected respectively to one of the stationary
conductors i1, i2, i3, i4, i5, i6, which in the present
design are mounted on the back of board A, and arranged
vertically. A third wire H1 is shown to be connected from
the neutral bus bar f to the meter H to furnish a shunt
current for operating them in the customary manner.
'Arranged
transversely to the meter circuit conductors i1, i2, i3,
i4, i5, i6, are the consumption conductors j1, j2, j3,
j4, j5, and j6, which in the present design are mounted
horizontally on the front side of board A. Each of these
last-mentioned conductors mounted on the front of the
board is arranged to be fuse-connected to the adjacent
terminal of a consumption circuit by means of a shallow
binding screw o or other suitable device, which does not
penetrate into the board or to the bars f1 or f2 behind,
but merely holds the fuse in contact with conductors j1,
j2, etc. Said consumption circuits may include lamps, as
shown, or any other kind of load. Said bars f1 and f2 are
permanently mounted on the board, preferably on the back
thereof, and by means of the plugs or screws m which
penetrate the board, are adapted to be fuse-connected to
the remaining terminals of the pairs of consumption
circuit terminals k1, k2, k3, k4, k5, and k6. Thus in
each pair of consumption circuit terminals one is
connected by a penetrating plug m to one of the mains
(the neutral one in this instance), while the remaining
terminal is adapted to be permanently fuse-connected by
means of a binding screw o to one of the set of permanent
consumption circuit conductors j1, j2, j3, j4, j5, or j6.
By the word 'permanent' is meant such parts as
are intended to be part of the apparatus itself in
distinction to the wiring or other parts that are
intended to be altered to suit requirements for
rearrangement of metering. In consequence of the above,
in each meter circuit in this three-wire design one
terminal of each pair of meter terminals is connected to
either the positive or negative supply main and the other
terminal is connected to its respective conductor i1 or
i2, etc.; while in each consumption circuit one terminal
is connected to the neutral supply main and the other
terminal is connected to one of the conductors j1 or j2,
etc. Each one of the meter conductors i1, i2, etc.,
crosses each one of the consumption conductors j1, j2,
etc., and therefore in order to complete the circuit
through a meter and a consumption circuit it is only
necessary to connect one of the conductors i1 or i2,
etc., with a conductor j1 or j2, etc. In the present
case, provision is made for this by aperturing the board
A at the different crossing points to receive plugs or
screws n, n, as best shown in Fig. 3.
'In
operation, suppose it is desired to throw consumption circuit
k2 onto the meter circuit h2, it is merely necessary to put
in a plug or screw n at the intersection of conductors i2 and
j2 as shown, among other combinations, in Fig. 2. If it is
desired to substitute consumption circuit k4 this may be done
by removing the aforesaid plug and placing it at the
intersection of conductors i2 and j4. All consumption
circuits may be connected to meter circuit h2 if desired by
putting in a plug at each of the intersections of conductor
i2 with the conductors j1, j2, j3, j4, j5, and j6. In a
similar manner any consumption circuit may be readily
connected to any meter, and as many consumption circuits as
desired may be connected to any one meter. It will be noted
that no change of wiring of any kind is required, the entire
operation consisting in simply inserting or removing one or
more plugs as the case may be.'
It was
stipulated on the hearing that appellant's device was
like that of appellee's. The only errors assigned go to
the alleged error of the court in holding that claims 1, 5,
6, 9, and 10 aforesaid were good and valid in law, and in
ordering an accounting.
1. A
metering panel board having crossed permanent conductors, the
conductors running one way being for the meter circuits and
those running across them being for the consumption circuits,
said conductors being adapted to be electrically connected at
their points of crossing, one set of conductors being
arranged alternately, so that one conductor leads toward one
edge of the board for connection to its circuit, while the
conductors on either side thereof lead toward the opposite
edge of the board for connection to their circuits.'
5. A
metering panel board having parallel conductors adapted for
electrical connection to the consumption circuits, said
parallel conductors being arranged alternately, so that one
conductor leads toward one edge of the board, while the...
