Eldred v. Kirkland
| Decision Date | 19 April 1904 |
| Docket Number | 192. |
| Citation | 130 F. 342 |
| Parties | ELDRED v. KIRKLAND. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York.
This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court for the Northern District of New York holding letters patent No. 492,913, for an electric lamp lighter, invalid, and dismissing the bill with costs. The opinion below is reported in 124 F. 553. The patent was considered by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Eldred v. Kessler, 106 F. 509, 45 C.C.A. 454, where the specification and claims are set out in haec verba. The court held that the patent must be limited to the precise construction shown and described, and, as so limited, the defendant's lighter, which is the same device in controversy in the case at bar, did not infringe.
Louis K. Gillson and Charles C. Linthicum (Clifford E. Dunn, of counsel), for appellant.
Stem Heidman & Mehlhope, for appellee.
Before WALLACE, LACOMBE, and COXE, Circuit Judges.
The complainant is the owner of letters patent No. 492,913 granted to Josephus C. Chambers, March 7, 1893, for an improvement in electric lamp lighters. The bill, in the usual form, prays for an injunction and an accounting. The answer interposes the familiar defenses of lack of novelty and invention and noninfringement.
The patent is for an electrically ignited fluid-burning wick lamp, intended for use as a cigar lighter and so arranged as to be lighted and extinguished automatically. The poles of an electric circuit are arranged adjacent to the end of the lamp to be lighted, the circuit being normally open. The breaking of the circuit producers an electric spark to ignite the lamp. When the lamp is not in use the wick is inclosed and covered by an open-sided hood, arranged at the upper extremity of a pivotally mounted arm having an operating handle at its lower end. By moving this arm upon its fulcrum, the wire point of the electrode mounted on the arm is brought first into contact with the metal of the lamp adjacent to the wick thereby completing the electric circuit. As the arm continues to be moved farther the wire point is disconnected from the lamp and produces an electric spark adjacent to the wick which lights it. When the user has lighted his cigar he releases his hold upon the handle and the arm returns to its normal position, out of electrical connection with the lamp, bringing the insulating cap and the extinguisher into position to extinguish the lamp. The device is provided with a battery of its own and can be used in small hamlets where there is neither gas nor electricity.
The claims involved are the first, fifth and tenth. They are as follows:
In discussing the prior art we deem it unnecessary to consider all the patents pleaded in the answer or even all of those referred to by the experts, for the reason that it is agreed by counsel and experts alike that the three which approximate most closely to the invention of Chambers are the patents to Eastman, granted August 30, 1892; Hen & Weinmann, granted May 1, 1888, and Kronenberg, granted March 12, 1889. If these patents do not anticipate or fatally limit the claims it is manifest that the other patents segregated or combined will not operate to do so.
The Eastman patent shows a self-lighting lamp, which consists of a tube corresponding in cross-section with the interior of a sheath, which holds the lamp, and is provided at its lower end with an extinguisher, which fits over the end of the burner when the lamp is at rest. The sheath is mounted upon a base at an angle of, approximately, 20 degrees, there being insufficient slope to enable the lamp to slide into place. Each time it is removed it must be shoved home by the hand of the user. The flame is electrically produced by the act of taking the lamp from its sheath and is extinguished by returning it thereto. The wick is ignited automatically by making and breaking contact with an electrode mounted on an arm which extends up and over the sheath in the line of travel of the wick tube; in all other respects the device is operated manually. The user withdraws the lamp completely from the sheath and carries it to the end of the cigar. If he be a prudent and careful person he will insert it again in the sheath and push it into place. If, on the other hand, he be thoughtless or stupid he is quite likely to place the lamp, still burning, in some other position with the probability that disastrous results will follow. If he simply releases his grasp, as in the Chambers device, the lamp will drop to the floor. It cannot be successfully contended that the Eastman torch is self-extinguishing. The apparatus in this respect is no more automatic than if a cup of water were provided and the user were instructed to put out the flame by thrusting the end of the torch into the water. Indeed, the manual action resembles that required in using the tapers so long in vogue where the alcohol flame was smothered by returning the taper to its holding tube and dropping it into place. The extinguisher consists of a flat plate, instead of an open-sided cap, which would, in all probability, bat down the wick and render the lamp useless after a few trials. Eastman shows the nearest approach to the device of the patent in suit. He and Chambers both had the same idea in mind, namely, the production of a self-igniting and self-extinguishing cigar lighter. Chambers succeeded. Eastman failed. The one produced a lamp having both these characteristics. The other a lamp having but one. Instead of anticipating, or seriously limiting the scope of the patent Eastman offers mute but persuasive tribute to Chambers' skill and ingenuity. Had he hit upon some plan by which his torch could be returned automatically to an open-sided cap extinguisher he would have...
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