Hake v. Brown

• Decision Date: 05 March 1889
• Citation: 37 F. 783
• Parties: HAKE v. BROWN et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

37 F. 783

HAKE v. BROWN et al.

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

March 5, 1889

Arthur v. Briesen, for orator.

Walter D. Edmonds, for defendants.

WHEELER J.

This cause rests upon patent 219,464, dated September 9, 1879, and granted to the orator for an 'improvement in visiting cards.' The patent describes a method of making bevel-edged cards, and of ornamenting the edges, by piling them obliquely, first, so that the slope of the pack will correspond with the desired bevel, compressing them to hold them in that position, beveling and ornamenting and finishing the whole pack on the sloping edge, which will bevel ornament, and finish that edge of each separate card by each operation, and of successively treating the other sides and end of the pack in the same manner, by which means the whole pack is treated as readily as one card. The first claim is for the method of treating cards in this manner, and the second is for a card so treated. The defenses are want of novelty, want of patentability, and lack of proof of infringement.

According to the evidence, bevel-edged cards were not new at that date of the orator's invention; neither was beveling in packs new; but arranging cards in oblique packs, and treating one side or end till all the cards were complete on that side or end, as if they were one card, and treating the other side and ends successively in the same manner, does not appear by the requisite measure of proof to have been known before. By this process the packs can be grooved or embossed and ornamented in a manner to present beveled designs upon the edges of such cards, which could not be produced by treating cards separately, and the making of bevel-edged cards of any design is greatly facilitated. This method seems to be ingenious and useful. Such an arrangement of mechanical operations, that produces a new and useful result, or an old result in an easier or better manner, is understood to be patentable. Cochrane v. Deener, 94 U.S. 789; Telephone Cases, 126 U.S. 1, 8 S.Ct. 778. The first claim of the patent, therefore, appears to be good and valid for the method described.

There is nothing new about the bevel-edged cards produced by this process, except that they are made in this way. They do not differ from those made in any other way, unless they do in design. The process does not inhere to the produce, so that it differs from any like product made in any other way, as...