Little Gem Mfg. Co. v. Strauss

• Decision Date: 18 July 1903
• Citation: 124 F. 900
• Parties: LITTLE GEM MFG. CO. v. STRAUSS et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

124 F. 900

LITTLE GEM MFG. CO. v. STRAUSS et al.

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

July 18, 1903

Andrew Fowlds, Jr., for complainant.

S. L Moody, for defendants.

PLATT District Judge.

This suit is brought for infringement of letters patent No 450,216, dated April 14, 1891, issued to Theodore M. Moe assignee before issue of the inventor, Fred. H. Brown. Claims 1, 2, and 3 of the patent in suit are at issue. The defenses set up are: (1) Want of title in plaintiff; (2) license to defendants; (3) license to manufacturer of the banks sold by defendants; (4) laches, acquiescence, implied license, and equitable estoppel; (5) invalidity; (6) noninfringement.

A careful reading of the record in this case leaves the candid mind quite indisposed to follow the plaintiff into the shadowy country whither one is compelled to travel if the narrow and technical views are adopted which its position renders necessary. The paper title may exist, but the method of reaching it is not too satisfactory. The license to the manufacturers may be technically unsound, but in the forum of equity and conscience it has much merit. Laches acquiescence, implied license, and equitable estoppel might be invoked to the discomfiture of the plaintiff, if no other plainly trodden path appeared, but a situation remains which easily settles the contention. In the light of the prior art the patent in suit either exhibits no invention at all, or if, after narrowing its construction, a shade of invention still remains, the defendant's device palpably fails to infringe. Let me, in all brevity, set down a fraction of my reason for reaching such a conclusion. Claims 1 and 2 of the patent in suit are:

'(1) A pocket savings bank for coins, comprising a tube, b, having a slot, o, for the insertion of the coins, a removable bottom, a, at one end of the tube, and a thumb-screw, m, at the other, adapted to be brought to bear upon a column of coins within the tube, and thereby remove said bottom to open the bank, substantially as described.

'(2) A pocket safe for coins, comprising a tube, b, having a slot, o, for the insertion of the coins, a removable spring-held bottom, a, at one end of the tube, and means at the other end adapted to be brought to bear upon a column of coins within the tube, and thereby remove said bottom to open the bank, substantially as described.'

These are made quite specific by the letters of reference and drawings, and need to have been so, as will soon appear, after examining the prior art. The plaintiff is reduced to a single chance, viz., to stand upon its third claim, broadly and generically construed:

'(3) A pocket safe for coins, consisting of a slotted tube, a detachable spring bottom, and a thumb-screw, which, by impinging against the column of money within, forces out the detachable spring bottom of the tube, thereby opening the bank, as described.'

To obtain a fair idea of the art as it existed when the inventor applied himself to the discovery of the new and useful invention for which he claims a monopoly, it is unnecessary to dive deeper than the following patents: The Colby patent No. 373,223, November 15, '87; The Brigham patent, No. 449,280, March 31, '91; the Goldsmith patent, No. 435,220, August 26, '90; the Hart patent, No. 449,852, ...