Company v. Desper
| Decision Date | 01 October 1879 |
| Docket Number | WATER-METER |
| Citation | 25 L.Ed. 1024,101 U.S. 332 |
| Parties | COMPANY v. DESPER |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
APPEAL from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts.
The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.
Mr. Andrew McCallum for the appellant.
Mr. J. E. Maynadier, contra.
This is a bill in equity filed by the Union Water-Meter Company, the appellant, to restrain the infringement of a patent and for an account of profits and damages. The letters-patent alleged to be infringed are reissued letters No. 5806, being a reissue of original letters-patent No. 109,372, granted 22d November, 1870, to Phinehas Ball and Benaiah Fitts for certain improvements in water-meters; the reissue being made to the complainant as assignee, on the 24th of March, 1874. The defendants, by their answer, deny that the reissued patent was for the same invention described in the original; aver that the invention claimed was covered by another patent granted 20th July, 1869, to the same patentees, Ball and Fitts; deny that they were the first and original inventors of the alleged improvement, specifying various older patents in which, as they allege, it was described, and divers persons who had known and used it; deny infringement; and aver that all water-meters made by the defendants are constructed according to letters-patent No. 144,747, granted 18th November, 1873, to Henry A. Desper, one of the defendants, except in the omission of a certain adjusting screw.
The water-meter which is the subject of the patent consists of two parallel horizontal cylinders, each traversed by two pistons, connected together by a connecting-rod of such length that when one piston is at one end of the cylinder the other is at a sufficient distance from the other end, to leave the requisite space to be filled with the quantity of water to be measured at each stroke. This water being discharged, the pistons are made to traverse the cylinder and allow the opposite end to be filled with water, and discharged in like manner. By this reciprocating motion of the pistons, regulated quantities of water are constantly received and discharged into and out of the two ends of the cylinder alternately. The pressure of the water from the source of supply, admitted by means of proper valves, gives to the pistons this reciprocating motion. The valve gear between the two parallel cylinders is so arranged as to cause the pistons in one cylinder to move in an opposite direction from those in the other. A rotary valve is used for both cylinders, situated between and below them, being circular, or funnel-shaped, having holes, or ports, in its side for the induction and eduction of the water into and out of the cylinders, and being crowned with a bevel-gear to give it a circular motion. Across and over the valve, extending from one piston-rod to the other, is placed a shaft, having a crank at each end, and a bevel pinion near one of the cranks, meshing into the bevel-gear of the valve; the two cranks are arranged at right angles with each other, and each has a crank-pin which is inserted in a slot made in the centre of the piston-rod with which it is connected,—the side of the cylinder being removed, or open, between the end portions that receive the water. The slot which receives the crank-pin is perpendicular, and at right angles with the length of the piston-rod, and is wider than the diameter of the pin, and enlarged in the middle in order to give the pin room, and allow the crank to turn freely over after the piston has been stopped. The pistons are prevented from coming into contact with the ends of the cylinders by means of adjusting stops, slightly projecting therefrom inside. Projecting stops for arresting the movement of the pistons, and much of the mechanical arrangement between the crank-shaft and the slots in the piston-rods, used for giving the proper motion to the crank-shaft, are to be found described in a patent granted to Mr. Ericsson in 1851 for a water-meter having slide valves instead of a rotary valve, but in which a rotary motion was communicated to the indicator.
The patent in question does not cover any of the separate parts of the meter, it being conceded that these were all known and used before the application for the patent. The claim relied on by ...
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