Consolidated Electric Light Co. v. McKeesport Light Co.

• Decision Date: 05 October 1889
• Citation: 40 F. 21
• Parties: CONSOLIDATED ELECTRIC LIGHT CO. v. McKEESPORT LIGHT CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania

40 F. 21

CONSOLIDATED ELECTRIC LIGHT CO. v. McKEESPORT LIGHT CO.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Pennsylvania.

October 5, 1889

Edmund Wetmore, Thomas B. Kerr, Amos Broadnax, and John Dalzell, for complainant.

R. N Dyer, B. F. Thurston, G. P. Lowry, W. R. Griffin, and Magnus Pflaum, for respondent.

BRADLEY Justice.

This is a bill for the alleged infringement of a patent, filed December 8, 1887, and the patent alleged to be infringed is dated May 12, 1885, and is for improvements in electric lamps. It was granted upon the application of William E Sawyer and Albon Man, of New York, to their assignees, the Electro Dynamic Light Company, and by mesne assignments was transferred to the complainant, whose title commenced in October, 1882, before the patent was issued. The application for the patent was filed January 9, 1880, and the issue was delayed by various proceedings in the patent-office including an interference with an application of Thomas A Edison, which had been filed a month earlier, to-wit, December 11, 1870. Various defenses were set up in the answer, such as anticipation by prior inventors, vagueness of description, want of novelty and utility, undue change of specification after filing, surreptitious claim of an invention made by Edison, etc. It is conceded that the defense of the suit is conducted by the Edison Electric Light Company, a corporation of New York, which sells the lamps complained of as infringements of the patent, and is interested as assignee in the patents, for electric lights formerly owned by the Edison Electric Light Company, and in the question of interference between Edison and the complainants. In the specification of the patent sued on, called 'Sawyer and Man Patent,' the invention is described as relating to that class of electric lamps employing an incandescent conductor, inclosed in a transparent, hermetically sealed vessel or chamber, from which oxygen is excluded, and constituting an improvement upon the apparatus shown in a previous patent granted to the same parties (Sawyer and Man) June 18, 1878, and numbered 205,144. It is further stated in the specifications that the invention relates more especially to the incandescent conductor, its substance, its form, and its combination with the other elements composing the lamp; and that the improvement consists, first, of the combination in a lamp chamber, composed wholly of glass, as described in the said former patent, of an incandescent conductor of carbon, made from a vegetable fibrous material, in contradistinction to a similar conductor made from mineral or gas carbon, and also in the form of such conductor, combined in lighting circuit within the exhausted chamber of the lamp. The construction of the lamp is then described; reference being made to the drawings for illustration. The lamp as described and shown in the drawings of a glass cylinder, with rounded top, cemented at the bottom to a glass disk or plate, ground to fit closely to the cylinder, and the whole bottom inclosed in a cup filled with wax or suitable cement, to prevent, as far as possible, the access of atmospheric air. Two holes are made in the bottom of the lamp for the passage of wires which convey the electric current into and out of the lamp. The carbon conductor within the glass cylinder is connected by its extremities to these two wires, respectively, in a mode specified in another patent of Sawyer and Man, dated December 10, 1878, and numbered 210,809, so as to constitute a part of the circuit; and having a low conductivity, and presenting a certain amount of resistance to the current of electricity, it becomes incandescent and highly luminous. If the carbon in this condition were exposed to atmospheric air, that is, to oxygen, it would be consumed by combustion. Hence another part of the combination necessary to the result consists in filling the lamp with nitrogen gas, or other gas, which prevents combustion, to the exclusion of atmospheric air. The mode of doing this is pointed out in the patent No. 205,144, before referred to. It is further stated, in the specifications, that in the practice of the invention the applicants had made use of carbonized paper, and also wood carbon; also that they had used conductors of different shapes, such as V-shaped, and with rectangular corners, but preferred the arch-shaped, as shown in the drawings. It is added that a description of the mode of making the illuminating carbon conductors described, 'and making the subject-matter of this improvement,' was unnecessary, as they could be made, by any one skilled in the art, by the ordinary well-known methods in practice. The specification then states the proposed practical advantages of the arched form of the conductor, by its permitting the carbon to expand and contract, and casting less shadow, and the advantage of making the wall of the lamp wholly of glass, by its preventing oxidation, leakage, etc., and states particularly the advantages resulting from the manufacture of the carbon from vegetable fibrous or textile material, instead of mineral or gas carbon. 'Among them,' it says, 'may be mentioned the convenience afforded for cutting and making the conductor in the desired form and size, the purity and equality of the carbon obtained, its susceptibility to tempering, both as to hardness and resistance, and its toughness and durability. ' 'We have used,' it is added, 'such burners, inclosed in hermetically sealed, transparent chambers, in a vacuum, in nitrogen gas, and in hydrogen gas, but we have obtained the best results in a vacuum, or an attenuated atmosphere of nitrogen gas; the great desideratum, being to exclude oxygen or other gases, capable of combining with carbon at high temperatures, from the incandescing chamber, as is well understood. ' The patent has four claims:

'(1) An incandescing conductor for an electric lamp, of carbonized fibrous or textile material, and of an arch or horseshoe shape, substantially as hereinbefore set forth. (2) The combination, substantially as hereinbefore set forth, of an electric circuit and an incandescing conductor of carbonized fibrous material, included in and forming part of said circuit, and a hermetically sealed chamber, in which the conductor is inclosed. (3) The incandescing conductor for an electric lamp, formed of carbonized paper, substantially as described. (4) An incandescing electric lamp, consisting of the following elements, in combination: First, an illuminating chamber, made wholly of glass, hermetically sealed, and out of which all carbon-consuming gas has been exhausted or driven; second, an electric circuit conductor passing through the glass wall of said chamber, and hermetically sealed therein, as described; third, an illuminating conductor in said circuit, and forming part thereof, within said chamber, consisting of carbon made from fibrous or textile material, having the form of an arch or loop, substantially as described for the purpose specified.'

The great question in this suit is whether the patent sued on is valid, so far as it involves a general claim for the use, in electric lamps, of incandescing carbon conductors, made of fibrous or textile substances. If it is, the complainant must prevail; if it is not, the bill must be dismissed. The claims of the patent (excluding the third claim, which the defendant does not use, and which is not involved in the case) may be summarized as follows: (1) A conductor of carbon, made of fibrous or textile material, and of an arched form; (2) a conductor of carbon, made of fibrous material, in an hermetically sealed chamber, without regard to form; (3) The combination of a conductor of carbon, made of fibrous or textile material, in an arched form, and the glass chamber hermetically sealed, and deprived of carbon-consuming gas. The claim of the combination last named may be dismissed from consideration as a separate claim; because a glass chamber, hermetically sealed, for holding the light, has always been used, and must necessarily be used, in all incandescing carbon electric lamps. It was used by King in 1845, by Greener and Staite in 1846, by Roberts in 1852, by Konn in 1872, by Kosloff in 1875, and by others. Unless the patent is valid for the conductor of carbon, made of fibrous or textile material, in an arched form, it cannot be made valid by combining such conductor with a glass chamber, hermetically sealed. We are equally of opinion that the giving of an arched form to the conductor was not new, and could not give to the claim any validity which it would not have as a broad claim of the conductor itself, made of carbon produced from a fibrous material. The arched or bent shape in incandescent conductors was applied in 1848 by Staite to an iridium conductor, in 1858 by Gardiner and Blossom to a platinum conductor, and in 1872 by Konn to a carbon conductor. In the last case the conductor was inclosed (as it had to be) in a glass lamp or case filled with nitrogen or other gas incapable of supporting combustion. The carbon, it is true, is presented in a V-shaped form; but in a similar patent, applied for a few weeks afterwards, claiming the same apparatus for the production of heat, the patentee very properly says: 'It is evident that stems of other shapes may be used. ' If the U or V shaped form had not been given to carbons made in fibrous material, for incandescent light, before Sawyer and Man adopted that form, it was merely an application by them of an old device to a new and analogous use. But the carbons used by Konn included charcoal, as well as other carbons. He mentions graphite as preferable, but he claims the use of carbon generally. As before stated, therefore, the patent must be construed as making the broad claim to the use, in...