Featherstone v. George R. Bidwell Cycle Co.

• Decision Date: 01 October 1892
• Docket Number: 5,136.
• Citation: 53 F. 113
• Parties: FEATHERSTONE v. GEORGE R. BIDWELL CYCLE CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

53 F. 113

FEATHERSTONE v. GEORGE R. BIDWELL CYCLE CO.

No. 5,136.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. New York.

October 1, 1892

Duncan & Page, for complainant.

Francis T. Chambers, for defendant.

TOWNSEND District Judge.

This is a suit brought for the alleged infringement of reissued letters patent No. 11,153, for improvements in wheel tires for cycles, and in the means of securing them to wheel rims with prayer for an injunction and an accounting. The patentee, Dunlop, originally obtained two patents in Great Britain,-- the first in 1888, for a pneumatic tire; the second in 1889, for an improvement in said tire, and in the means of securing it to wheel rims. The English patent of 1889 claimed an inflated tube of India rubber, enveloped by a strengthening fold of canvas cemented to the metallic rim of the wheel and to an outer fold of India rubber thickened at its point of contact with the ground. The metallic rim of the wheel was flattened so as to furnish a large bearing surface and was enveloped with a protective strip of canvas or line. To these protective strips other strips of some elastic material were to be fastened between the edges of the rim and the strengthening folds which enveloped the rubber tube, so as to protect these folds from being injured by the edges of said rim.

On September 9, 1890, Dunlop obtained a patent in the United States for this invention, describing it as the one patented in Great Britain in 1889. On November 24, 1890, he applied for another patent, which was issued to him June 2, 1891. The original application for this patent contained claims substantially the same as those involved in the present suit. On January 14, 1891, Dunlop surrendered his patent of September 9, 1890, and prayed for a reissue thereof, which was granted to him March 24, 1891. For the infringement of this patent the present suit is brought. Claims 4 and 5 of the reissue are the only ones to which it is at present necessary to refer. They are as follows:

(4) 'The combination, with the rim of a cycle wheel and an inflated, expansible tubular tire, of a tubular nonexpansible, confining envelope surrounding said tire, and formed or provided with flaps or free edges turned over and cemented to the inner surface of the rim, as set forth.'

(5) 'The combination, with the rim of a cycle wheel and an inflated, expansible tubular tire, of a tubular nonexpansible, confining envelope surrounding said tire, and provided with flaps or free edges secured to the rim, and an outer protective covering of India rubber, the edges of which are secured to the inner surface of the rim, as set forth.' The defenses are: (1) Anticipation; (2) no invention; (3) invalidity of reissue. The first two defenses may be considered together. Defendant introduced as evidence of the state of the art several patents. Patent No. 5,104, granted to Robert W. Thompson, May 28, 1847, for an improvement in carriage wheels, etc., claimed the rubber tube, a cover of canvas, and an outer casing consisting of two strips of leather, one bolted to the outer side of the felly, and fastened to the other strip by rivets or by strong leather thongs. But neither in the said patent nor in the printed publications filed therewith, describing carriage wheels said to contain modifications of the patented tire, but which show only one inner tube, do I find any anticipation of the Dunlop method of fastening the tire to the wheel. The only method of fastening therein described is by means of bolts with or without a hoop. The Thompson patent was for elastic bearings applied around wheels, and was especially adapted to carriage wheels. The mode of fastening by bolting the leather casing to the tire, with or without the hoop, was merely incidental. The Dunlop patent is for an improvement in the means of securing pneumatic tires to wheels, and is especially adapted to cycle wheels. By the Thompson invention, including herein the modifications shown in the printed publications, the pneumatic tire, as one of the witnesses expresses it, 'is bolted or secured to one side of the rim, and the other one (the Dunlop) embodies the rim. ' The Thompson bolted fastening, by reason of its weight, the projecting bolt heads, its narrower attachments, and lack of adaptation to lateral pressure, could not be successfully applied to a bicycle. Besides, the mode of fastening the leather strips by rivets or thongs would permit the entrance of water and grit, and would render it impracticable.

The essence of Dunlop's invention is the means of uniting a flexible rubber tube by an inflexible jacket to the rim of a bicycle wheel, so that, while rigidity is obtained, elasticity is retained. The tire and the felly were, by this invention, so united, not only to the outer edges of the rim, but, by the canvas flaps, to the inner or hub face of the wheel rim, that the lateral and tangential strain were effectually resisted; and herein is to be found one of the new results of the new application. The carriage wheels of Thompson were not a single pair of wheels, one following the other, guided by the swaying motion of the front wheel from side to side, and therefore they were not protected against such lateral motion. This element is also wanting from the Thomas patents to be hereafter noticed.

But defendants claim that, even if the Dunlop patent was not anticipated, the state of the art was such that it did not require any invention to adapt the known device to the new purpose. They introduced, among others, nine patents for wheel tires, granted in 1889, to A. W. Thomas, of whom they are licensees. But none of the patents therein claimed or suggested for fastening tires to wheels suggested the method or means patented by Dunlop. The patent No. 399,358 described a tire fastened by bands of elastic or pliable material, but the fastening is effected by having the bands circumscribe the surface of the felly of the wheels, and the inventor prefers that they may be made of such material 'that they may expand uniformly with the tube or tire in its inflation. ' This mode of fastening is open to the very objections, among others, obviated by the Dunlop nonexpansible canvas jacket. It seems to me that the evidence from the patents, as well as from other sources, establishes the fact that the Dunlop patent was the result of inventive skill, and was of great utility. That Thomas could not, with his nine patents,...