Cary v. Domestic Spring-Bed Co.

• Citation: 26 F. 38
• Parties: CARY and others v. DOMESTIC SPRING-BED CO. and others. [1]
• Decision Date: 06 January 1886
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

26 F. 38

CARY and others v. DOMESTIC SPRING-BED CO. and others. ^[1]

United States Circuit Court, D. New Jersey.

January 6, 1886

Mr Collins and Mr. Keasbey, for defendants.

Mr Duncan and Mr. Witter, for complainants.

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 years in the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of New York. Judge ACHESON, in the Western district of Pennsylvania, followed Judge WHEELER, and granted to the complainant a preliminary injunction. 24 F. 141. An application was then made to this court, in July last, for a provisional injunction, and finding that no facts were revealed by the affidavits which had not been considered by the learned judge in the Wolff Case, I ordered the injunction, without an examination of the merits, or expressing any opinion upon the validity of the patent.

The defendants now introduce a number of new affidavits, relating to the novelty of the invention, and move to vacate and dissolve the injunction heretofore granted. They seem to occupy new ground. They acknowledge the value of Cary's alleged invention; concede, as the patent claims, that, in the operation of coiling the wire into springs, the metal is weakened by disturbing the molecules,-- the outer portion of the coil being drawn or stretched, and the inner portion crushed or shortened,-- and admit that the elasticity and strength, lost by the distortion, is more than restored by subjecting the spring, for a few minutes, to a degree of heat known as 'spring-temper heat.' They claim nevertheless, that Cary has been anticipated in the discovery that spiral springs are improved in elasticity by such a process; and that the fact was known, and the process in public use,-- by the affidavits,-- some years before he claims to have discovered and used it.

In considering the application, I have confined myself mainly to the testimony of the three employes of the American Spiral Spring Butt-hinge Company, to-wit, John I. Riker, and John and Joseph R. Pereira.

Mr Riker says that in 1864 he became the foreman of the American Spiral Spring Butt-hinge Company, then carrying on its business in Jersey City; that they manufactured spiral springs in connexion with butt-hinges; that he was in the continuous employ of the company from 1864 to 1875, either as foreman or superintendent, and was thoroughly acquainted with all its manufacturing operations, and conducted them; that he studied the best means of tempering the springs after they were completed, and early learned that it injured their quality to heat them, beyond a blue color, to a red heat; that for several years he was in the habit, after heating the springs, to plunge them into an oil-bath, supposing that it was necessary in order to impart to them a good, even, elastic temper; but that in the year 1867 or 1868 (certainly before 1870) he had some springs, on which some japan had accidentally dropped, and which he put into the furnace to burn off, and found their quality improved,...