Evans v. Eaton

• Decision Date: 01 February 1818
• Parties: EVANS v. EATON
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

16 U.S. 454

3 Wheat. 454

4 L.Ed. 433

EVANS v. EATON.

February Term, 1818

Error, to the circuit court for the district of Pennsylvania.

This was an action brought by the plaintiff in error, against the defendant in error, for an alleged infringement of the plaintiff's patent right to the use of his improved hopper-boy, one of the several machines discovered, invented, improved, and applied by him to the art of manufacturing flour and meal, which patent was granted on the 22d January, 1808. The defendant pleaded the general issue, and gave the notice hereafter stated. The verdict was rendered, and judgment given thereupon for the defendant in the court below; on which the cause was brought, by writ of error, to this court.

At the trial in the court below, the plaintiff gave in evidence, the several acts of congress entitled respectively, 'An act to promote the progress of useful arts, and to repeal the acts heretofore made for that purpose;' And to extend the privilege of obtaining patents, for useful discoveries and inventions,

to certain persons therein mentioned, and to enlarge and define penalties for violating the rights of patentees;' and 'An act for the relief of Oliver Evans;' the said Oliver's petition to the secretary of state, for a patent,^a and the patent thereupon granted

to the said Oliver, dated the twenty-second day of January, in the year 1808;^b and further gave in evedence,

that an agent for the plaintiff, wrote a note to the defendant in answer to which, he called on the

agent at Chambersburg, at the house of Jacob Snyder, on the ninth of August, 1813; there were a number

of millers present; the defendant then told the agent that he had got Mr. Evans' Book, a plate in

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'An act for the relief of Oliver Evans,' which authorizes the Secretary of

State to secure to him by patent the exclusive right to the use of such improvement in the art of manufacturing flour and meal, and in the several machines which he has discovered, improved and applied to that purpose; he has paid into the treasury of the United States, the sum of thirty dollars, delivered a receipt for the same, and presented a petition to the Secretary of State, signifying a desire of obtaining an exclusive property in the said improvement, and praying that a patent may be granted for that purpose: These are therefore to grant, according to law, to the said Oliver Evans his heirs, administrators, or assigns, for the term of fourteen years, from the twenty-second day of January, 1808, the full and exclusive right and liberty of making, using, and vending to others to be used, the said improvement, a description whereof is given in the words of the said Oliver Evans himself, in the schedule hereto annexed, and is made a part of these presents.

In testimony whereof, I have caused these Letters to be made Patent, and the seal of the United States to be hereunto affixed.

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this twenty-second day of January, in the year of our Lord, oue thousand eight hundred and eight, and of the independence of the United States of America, the thirty-second,

TH: JEFFERSON.

By the President,

JAMES MADISON, Secretary of State.

SEAL.

City of Washington, To wit:

I DO HEREBY CERTIFY, That the foregoing Letters Patent were deivered to me on the twenty-second day of January, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and eight to be examined; that I have examined the same, and find them conformable to law. And I do hereby return the same to the Secretary of State, within fifteen days from the date aforesaid, to wit: on this twenty-second day of January, in the year aforesaid,

C. A. RODNEY, Attorney General of the United States.

THE SCHEDULE

Referred to in these letters patent, and making part of the same containing a description, in the words of the said Oliver Evans, of his improvements in the art of manufacturing flour and meal.

the Millwright's Guide, and if the agent would take forty dollars, the defendant would give it him; the

defendant said that his hopper-boy was taken from a plate in Mr. Evan's book; he said he would give no more, alleging, that the hundred dollars the agent asked was too much; that the stream on which his mill was, was a small head of Conogocheage. The agent then declared, that if the defendant would not pay him by Monday morning, he would commence a suit in the circuit court.

The plaintiff further gave in evidence, that another agent for the plaintiff was in the defendant's mill on the second of November, 1814, and saw a hopper-boy there, on the principles and construction of the plaintiff's hopper-boy. This witness had heard that a

right was obtained under Pennsylvania; but did not known of any rights under Pennsylvania sold by the plaintiff; and did not know that it was erected in any mill after the patent under Pennsylvania. The defendant's

hopper-boy had an upright shaft, with a leading arm, in the first place, and a large arm inserted

with flights, and leading lines, and sweepers; a little board, for the purpose of sweeping the meal in the

bolting hoppers and spreading it over the floor; a balance weight, to cause the arms to play up and down lightly over the meal. The leading arms were about 5

feet long, and seemed to be in proportion, the arm about 14, and the length of the sweep about 9 inches.

And the defendant, having previously given the plaintiff written notice, that upon the trial of the

cause, the defendant would give in evidence, under the general issue, the following special matter, to

wit: '1st. That the improved hopperboy, for which, inter alia, the plaintiff in his declaration alleges he

has obtained a patent, was not originally discovered by the patentee, but had been in use anterior to the supposed discovery of the patentee, in sundry places, to wit: at the mill of George Fry and Jehu Hollingsworth, in Dauphin county, Pennsylvania; at Christian Stauffer's mill in Warwick township, Lancaster county, state of Pennsylvania; at Jacob Stauffer's mill in the same county, at Richard Downing's mill in Chester county, Pennsylvania; at Buffington's mill on the Brandvwine; at Daniel Huston's mill in Lancaster county, Pennsylvania; at Henry Stauffer's mill in York county, Pennsylvania; and at Dihl's mill in the same county, or at some of the said places, and also at sundry other places in the said state of Pennsylvania, the state of Maryland, and elsewhere

in the United States. 2d. That the patent given to the plaintiff, as he alleges in his declaration, is more extensive than his discovery or invention, for that certain parts of the machine in said patent, called an improved hopper-boy, and which the plaintiff claims as his invention and discovery, to wit, the upright shaft, arms, and flights, and sweeps, or some of them, and those parts by which the meal is spread, turned and gathered at one operation, and also several other parts, were not originally invented and discovered by him, but were in use prior to his said supposed invention or discovery, to wit, at the places above mentioned, or some of them. 3d. That the said patent is also more extensive than the plaintiff's invention or discovery; for that the application of the power that moves the mill or other principal machine to the hopper-boy is not an original invention or discovery of the plaintiff, but was in use anterior to his said supposed invention or discovery, to wit, at the places above mentioned, or some of them. 4th. That the said patent is void, because it purports to give him an exclusive property in an improvement in the art of manufacturing meal, by means of a certain machine, termed an improved hopperboy, of which the said plaintiff is not the original inventor or discoverer; parts of the machine in the description thereof referred to by the patent, having been in use anterior to the plaintiff's said supposed discovery, to wit, at the places above mentioned, or some of them; and the said patent and description therein referred to contains no statement, specification, or description.

by which those parts, so used as aforesaid, may be distinguished from those of which the said plaintiff may have been the inventor, or discoverer, protesting at the same time that he has not been the inventor or discoverer of any of the parts of the said machine. 5th. That the improved elevator, described in the declaration, or referred to therein, was not originally discovered by the plaintiff, but was anterior to his said supposed discovery or invention, described in certain public works, or books, to wit, in Shaw's Travels; in the first volume of the Universal History; in the first volume of Mormer's Hushandry; in Ferguson's Mechanics; in Bossuet's Histoire des Mathematiques; in Wolf's Cours des Mathematiques; in Desagulier's Experimental Philosophy, and in Proney's Architecture Hydraulique, or some of them. 6th. That the said patent is more extensive than the invention or discovery of the plaintiff, because certain parts of the machine called an improved elevator, were, anterior to the plaintiff's said supposed invention or discovery, described in certain public works, or books, to wit, the works or books above mentioned, or some of them; and that the said patent is void, because it neither contains or refers to any specification or description by which the parts so before described in the said public works, may be distinguished from those parts of which the plaintiff may be the inventor, or discoverer, protesting, at the same time, that he has not been the inventor or discoverer of any of the parts of the said machine;' gave in evidence the existence of hopperboys prior to the plaintiff's alleged discovery at sundry mills in the state of Pennsylvania,

mentioned in the said notice; and further offered to give in evidence the existence of hopperboys prior to the plaintiff's alleged discovery, at sundry other mills in the state of Pennsylvania, not...