Cimiotti Unhairing Co. v. American Unhairing Mach Co.
| Decision Date | 27 August 1900 |
| Citation | 108 F. 82 |
| Parties | CIMIOTTI UNHAIRING CO. et al. v. AMERICAN UNHAIRING MACH. CO. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Goepel & Raegener, for complainants.
Schreiter & Matthews, for defendant.
This opinion relates to three cases, namely, this complainant against Max Bowsky, Karl Mischke, and the American Unhairing Machine Company. The defendent Mischke constructed the machines used by the defendent the American Unhairing Machine Company. The suit against Max Bowsky after final hearing was decided in favor of this complainant as to the eighth claim of the Sutton patent. Afterwards the case of this complainant against Karl Mischke, upon practically the same testimony was opened, and evidence was introduced as to a machine known as the 'Covert Machine,' and this machine was claimed by defendant to show prior public use. This case also was argued at final hearing, and Judge Wheeler, following the opinion in the case against Bowsky, sustained the patent and, upon independent consideration held the Covert machine not to be an anticipation. Subsequently the defendant again moved to reopen the cases alleging an English patent to Lake as a complete anticipation of the patent in suit. All three cases have been opened therefore and further testimony has been taken as to this Lake English patent. In this discussion it is understood that the findings in the former cases will be followed, except in so far as they may be affected by the evidence as to the English patent. The defendant has & abandoned practically all the contentions made on the final hearings in each of the other cases, and upon the oral argument herein seemed further to have abandoned the claim that the Lake patent is an anticipation. The claim as stated by him on the oral argument is that while the Lake machine, in view of the prior art, does not fully anticipate the eighth claim of the patent in suit, yet that features which distinguish said claim from the prior art are not infringed by the defendant Bowsky, because he does not use the mechanism to bring the brush forward, but uses a sliding motion of the brush on the offside of stretcher bar, and not in front thereof, and that the defendant Mischke merely uses the Lake device minus the roll, D, and does not have the sliding motion of the patent. The Lake English patent was published in October, 1881. It has the elements common to all unhairing machines of this class, namely, a stretcher bar, means for intermittently feeding the pelt over said bar, a pressure plate or guard device on the feed side thereof, and knives for cutting the hairs. Its mode of operation is not very clear. The utmost that defendant's expert, who also appears as counsel, claims for it in his testimony and argument is that the instructions therein are 'sufficient to enable a mechanic skilled in the art to produce the rearrangement or modification of the construction of the machine necessary to produce this result,' namely, the result achieved by the complainant's and defendant's machines. The construction described in said patent is such that when the pelt is stretched over the stretcher bar the bar is moved toward two rolls, known, respectively, as D' and D. It is stated in the patent that these rolls are or with D. If the former or more natural mode of operation is the one intended, the device does not disclose the inventive conception of the eighth claim of the Sutton patent. If operated in the opposite direction, counsel for defendants strenuously claims that it discloses the exact function and would produce the same result as that in the patent in suit. Much stress is laid by defendants' counsel on the suggestion that the rolls are to be covered with bristles or teazles. He therefore assumes that they are to be like the still brush of the Sutton invention, and would produce the...
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In re Robertshaw
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