Edison Elec. Light Co. v. Davis Elec. Works

• Decision Date: 13 December 1893
• Docket Number: 3,196.
• Citation: 58 F. 878
• Parties: EDISON ELECTRIC LIGHT CO. et al. v. DAVIS ELECTRICAL WORKS.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

58 F. 878

EDISON ELECTRIC LIGHT CO. et al. v. DAVIS ELECTRICAL WORKS.

No. 3,196.

United States Circuit Court, D. Massachusetts.

December 13, 1893

Frederick P. Fish and Wm. K. Richardson, for complainants.

John L S. Roberts, for defendant.

COLT Circuit Judge.

If the Edison lamp were so constructed that a new burner could be placed in it, like a new wick in an ordinary lamp, or if it were made of two parts designed to be taken apart for the purpose of replacing the old burner with a new one, as in the Sawyer-Man lamp, I should hold that a purchaser of the Edison lamp had a right to renew the carbon filament, on the ground that this was an ordinary repair, contemplated by the patentee when the lamp was sold, and that the defendant in so repairing such lamps did not infringe the Edison patent. But the difficulty which meets me in this case is that the Edison lamp was not designed to be so repaired, and is incapable of such renewal.

The Edison lamp is constructed as an organic whole, and you cannot break open the all-glass chamber and insert a new filament without a substantial reconstruction of the lamp. The lamp is only intended for use during the life of the filament. In prior incandescent lamps the life of the burner was brief, and it was necessary to so build the lamp that this part could be renewed. Edison, by making an almost perfect vacuum in the all-glass chamber, and thoroughly sealing all the parts, constructed a lamp in which the filament or burner lasts from 600 to 1,000 hours. To attain this result the lamp assumes a form of construction which renders it impossible to replace a new filament in the glass bulb without building essentially a new lamp. When you take an Edison lamp with its filament destroyed, and break open the all-glass chamber, you have only left the broken pieces--the remains--of the original lamp. Its identity as a structure is gone. The only parts remaining which are not impaired or destroyed are the metallic head and the leading-in wires. When you build anew from such materials, it is like breaking up an old machine and constructing a new one in which some of the old parts are used.

The defendants first break off the tip of the glass bulb of the lamp, and ream out a hole about one-half inch in diameter. The broken filament is then removed. The new filament, having its ends cemented into platinum sleeves, is then inserted into the glass chamber, the sleeves being pushed...