Bridge v. Excelsior Company
| Decision Date | 01 October 1881 |
| Parties | BRIDGE v. EXCELSIOR COMPANY |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri.
The case is stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. Robert H. Parkinson for the appellants.
Mr. Samuel S. Boyd for the appellees.
This case arises upon a bill in equity, founded upon certain letters-patent dated July 18, 1876, and numbered 180,001, granted to one Esek Bussey for an improvement in cooking-stoves. The appellants, as his assignees, sue the Excelsior Manufacturing Company and the other appellees for alleged infringement, and pray an injunction, an account of profits, and an assessment of damages. The appellees filed an answer, denying infringement, and alleging the patent to be invalid by reason of certain older patents and of the prior public use of his alleged invention. The patent relates to an oven-shelf placed on a level with the bottom of the oven when the door is open, and outside of the oven, to serve as a shelf for pans and other vessels to rest on, when drawn out of, or shoved into, the oven. The claim is not for the shelf as that is admitted to be old, but for an automatic device for raising the shelf upright and enclosing it within the door when the latter is closed and letting it down to a horizontal position when the door is opened. The device is a cam attached to the door, which passes under the edge of the shelf, and gradually raises it to a nearly perpendicular position as the door shuts. The shelf falls back of its own weight when the door opens, resting on the cam. The claim of the patent is as follows:——
'What I claim, and desire to secure by letters-patent, is——
'In combination with a stove-oven, a hinged shelf, fitted to fall outward and down automatically when the oven-door is opened, and to be raised up by closing the oven-door, adapted to operate upon it for that purpose substantially in the manner and for the purposes herein set forth.'
The defendants made and sold stoves containing oven-shelves constructed and operated as described in letters-patent granted to E. C. Little and D. H. Nation, dated July 9, 1878, and numbered 205,754. This shelf also has an automatic movement, being raised when the door shuts, and lowered when it opens. But the device by which this is accomplished is different from that of Bussey. A cam, or arm, is used on the door, it is true; but it does...
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Mantz v. Kersting
...The art is old. Neither invention is primary. They must, therefore, be limited to the very structure described. Bridge v. Excelsior Co., 1881, 105 U.S. 618, 26 L.Ed. 1190; Boyd v. Janesville Hay-Tool Co., 1895, 158 U.S. 260, 267, 15 S.Ct. 837, 39 L.Ed. 973; Kokomo Fence Machine Company v. K......
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Stitzer v. Withers
... ... into a profitable contract with the American Express Company, ... whereby that company adopted the portable stall covered by ... patent No. 732,232 for use on ... infringement of a former patent (Bridge v. Excelsior ... Mfg. Co., 105 U.S. 618, 26 L.Ed. 1191), and is not ... covered by an assignment ... ...
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H. Brinton Co. v. Mishcon
...in the section at all. Boyd v. Janesville Hay Tool Co., 158 U.S. 260, 15 S.Ct. 837, 39 L.Ed. 973; Bridge, Beach & Co. v. Excelsior Mfg. Co., 105 U.S. 618, 26 L.Ed. 1190. Decree ...
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West Disinfecting Co. v. United States Paper Mills
...securing the same result, but operating on a different principle, is not an infringement of a former patent (Bridge v. Excelsior Mfg. Co., 105 U. S. 618, 26 L. Ed. 1191), and is not covered by an assignment of the patent with an agreement to assign all improvements made on it." Stitzer v. W......