Irvington Mfg. Co. v. Utica Drop Forge & Tool Co.

• Decision Date: 06 November 1911
• Docket Number: 1,524.
• Citation: Irvington Mfg. Co. v. Utica Drop Forge & Tool Co., 191 F. 169 (3rd Cir. 1911)
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit
• Parties: IRVINGTON MFG. CO. v. UTICA DROP FORGE & TOOL CO.

191 F. 169

IRVINGTON MFG. CO. v. UTICA DROP FORGE & TOOL CO.

No. 1,524.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

November 6, 1911

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey.

Geo. L Wheelock, for appellant.

Martin and Jones, for appellee.

Before GRAY, BUFFINGTON, and LANNING, Circuit Judges.

BUFFINGTON Circuit Judge.

In the court below, the Utica Drop Forge & Tool Company, the owner of patent No. 794,064, granted July 4, 1905, for fence-wire pliers, filed a bill against the Irvington Manufacturing Company charging infringement thereof. The lower court sustained the bill, and from the entry of a decree the Irvington Company appealed to this court. The question involved is the validity and construction of the claims in question. The device concerns tooth-pointed pliers for drawing wire-fence staples. The prior art was a well-developed one and left a narrow field for inventive effort when the patent in suit was granted. Without citing the numerous prior devices, we content ourselves with referring to patent No. 545,537 to Russell granted September 3, 1895. Russell's device is shown in the accompanying figure, in which it will be noted there are pointed teeth at the outer corners of the registering jaws.

(Image Omitted)

The complainant, making cylindrical the registering center of the jaws of this device, for many years made a commercially successful staple puller. In the device of patent No. 724,669 to Cottrell, April 7, 1903, the central portion of the jaws of a staple puller, as shown in the figure:

(Image Omitted) In this state of the art White applied for his patent on the device here shown:

(Image Omitted)

In it he utilizes the two exterior, pointed pulling teeth of Russell, and the central one of Cottrell, with this difference in Cottrell's tooth: That White placed on the cylindrical central faces of each of his pliers a raised rib and at the engaging end of such ribs he located his central tooth, which is designated as 5 in his drawings. In his specification he says:

'On the broad face end of the jaw there is provided a raised or projecting surface or rib 4, which is substantially centrally located, and at the meeting ends of the ribs 4, on the respective jaws, there are also provided inwardly-projecting points or teeth 5 5, which are adapted to register with each other when the jaws are closed.'

This point 5 he specifies and carries into claim 1 as follows:

'1. The combination in a pliers of a pair of

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