Carlton v. Bokee

• Court: U.S. Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: BRADLEY
• Citation: Carlton v. Bokee, 17 Wall. 463, 21 L.Ed. 517, 84 U.S. 463 (1873)
• Decision Date: 01 October 1873
• Parties: CARLTON v. BOKEE

84 U.S. 463

21 L.Ed. 517

17 Wall. 463

CARLTON v. BOKEE.

October Term, 1873

APPEAL from the Circuit Court for the District of Maryland.

William Carlton et al., as assignees of Christian Reichmann, filed their bill in equity in the court below to restrain Howard Bokee from infringing a patent for an improvement in lamps, granted to Reichmann on the 21st of September, 1858, and reissued to Carlton and one Merrill on the 11th of August, 1868.

The court below dismissed the bill, and the complainant took this appeal.

The case can be gathered from the facts stated in the opinion of the court.

Messrs. J. H. B. Latrobe and B. R. Curtis, for the appellant; Messrs. C. F. Blake and C. M. Keller, contra.

Mr. Justice BRADLEY stated the facts and delivered the opinion of the court.

The lamp, as patented to Reichmann, was one of a large number of attempts made about the time to utilize petroleum and its various products for purposes of illumination. The old lamps adapted to sperm oil, lard, and other gross and sluggish oils were unfitted for the use of so volatile and dangerous a substance. In them the flame was set close to the lamp, and the tube holding the wick was projected downward into the oil, so that the heat of the flame might be communicated thereto in order to render it more fluid and susceptible to the capillary attraction of the wick. Such an arrangement as this with petroleum would have produced a

speedy explosion. This article required that the flame should be elevated as far as possible above the lamp and that the metallic wick tube should not communicate any heat to the fluid. This was one object to be attained in the burners required for the use of the new illuminator. Another was some contrivance for concentrating a current of air upon the flame itself, so as to consume as perfectly as possible all the rapidly escaping volatile gases, both as a saving of light and as a preventive of the disagreeable odors-which they would otherwise diffuse.

Reichmann's burner, illustrated in Figure 1, was intended to accomplish these main objects as well as some subsidiary ones, which will hereafter appear. It consisted of several distinct parts, combined and arranged in a particular manner. First, a flat wick-tube (indicated in the figure by the letter c) attached to the cap or stopper of the lamp, and rising above the same one or two inches, more or less, according to the size of the burner, but not projecting into the lamp below. Secondly, ratchet-wheels attached to the side of the wick-tube on a small shaft (g), for raising and lowering the wick. Thirdly, a slide or sleeve (i) fitted to slip up and down over the wick-tube, and sufficiently tight to stay in any position thereon, and furnished with arms (o, ), two or more, for supporting above the wick-tube a dome or deflector (m). Fourthly, the dome aforesaid, having an oval or oblong slot for the flame to pass through, so that part of the flame might be above the dome and part below it. The object of this dome was to collect and concentrate the air upon the flame, in order to make it burn more brightly and consume they hydro-carbon and other gases which emanated from the petroleum. It also acted as a deflector of the light proceeding from the lower part of the flame, whereby it was thrown downward towards and around the lamp, whereas the light from that part of the flame above the dome was all thrown upward or horizontally about the room. Fifthly, around the periphery of the dome several narrow slips of the metal (k) were turned up, to act as arms or supports to the glass chimney of the lamp, and between these arms spaces were cut out of the edge of the dome, to allow air to pass up between the dome and chimney for the purpose of guiding the flame and feeding it with additional oxygen. Sixthly, the chimney itself (p), which was placed inside of and upon the said arms or supports, and held in its position thereby.

This was the combination of elements of which Reichmann's burner consisted, and it will be perceived that the chimney was so elevated that the flame of the lamp below the dome was exposed on every side, and a current of air or a rapid movement of the lamp would extinguish it. This was the great defect of the burner, which prevented its introduction into general use, and rendered it of little value. The principal advantage which Reichmann in his patent claimed for it was that it allowed the light from the under side of the deflector to be reflected or thrown downward upon the table or lamp. This was effected by the use of upright, slender arms to support the dome, so that the space around and underneath the dome was left open and uninclosed. He also claimed some less important advantages in his arrangement of the ratchet-wheels for raising the wick, and one or two other things of no importance in this controversy.

The patent had but one claim and that amounted to the general combination of elements referred to and their peculiar arrangement. It was in these words:

'What I claim as new and desire to secure by letters-patent is, in combination with the lamp, the slotted, open, bell-shaped cap (i. e., the dome) when so constructed, arranged, and operating as to allow light to be deflected downwards, substantially in the manner and for the purpose herein set forth and explained.'

In order to understand how narrow this claim really was, it is necessary to know a little of the history of the art. Two well-known burners are conceded to have been in use before Reichmann's invention, which have a material bearing on his claims; the Vienna burner and Stuber's burner. These have been exhibited to us.

The Vienna burner, shown in Figure 2, contained the flat wick-tube, the ratchet-wheel attached thereto (but covered and not exposed as in Reichmann's), and a slotted dome above the wick for the flame to pass through, and a chimney; but the dome was not supported by slender arms, as in Reichmann's, but was connected with a gallery, which supported the chimney and surrounded the wick-tube and dome, and rested on the lamp or cap below, so that all the light of the flame below the dome was inclosed and lost and could not issue out as in Reichmann's burner. The drawing shows the dome (a), the surrounding gallery (b), and the lower part of the wick-tube (c).

The Stuber burner, invented by John Stuber in 1856, and made in considerable quantities in that and the following years at Utica, New York (shown in Figure 3), was an improvement on the Vienna burner, in this, that the gallery was so low as to leave a considerable open space under the dome for the reflected light to pass out in a downward direction, and the dome was supported by slender arms (d), but these arms were attached to the gallery and not to a sleeve fitted on to the wick-tube. It differed, therefore, from Reichmann's in these respects: the chimney was supported on a low gallery instead of the dome itself, and the dome was supported by arms ...