Mesick v. Moore

• Decision Date: 03 April 1900
• Docket Number: 712.
• Citation: Mesick v. Moore, 100 F. 845 (D. Mass. 1900)
• Parties: MESICK et al. v. MOORE et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

100 F. 845

MESICK et al. v. MOORE et al.

No. 712.

United States Circuit Court, D. Massachusetts.

April 3, 1900

William A. Macleod, for complainants.

Allen Webster and Oliver R. Mitchell, for defendants.

BROWN District Judge.

This suit is for infringement of letters patent No. 432,582 granted to J. A. Turner, July 22, 1890, described as for a 'racer adapted to the braiding of whiplashes and the like. ' The question of infringement of the second and fourth claims will alone be considered. The specification states that the braiding of whiplashes 'demands a strong and continuously-even tension, and an apparatus so constructed that the speed in running of the machine shall not change or derange the tension during the operation of braiding,' and that is the object of the invention to provide a racer 'having the requisite tension for the braiding of whiplashes, which tension will not be changed or deranged by the running of the machine. ' The claims are as follows:

'(2) In a racer, the frame, 6, provided with pivot, 15, the ratchet, 17, the dog, 18, nut, 21, spring, 22, pin, 24, and saddle, 25, all so arranged and combined as to receive and produce the requisite tension on the thread or strand from the spool, 8.' '(4) In a racer, the frame, 6, bent or formed at the top with a recess, 35, the ratchet, 17 dog, 18, nut, 21, spring, 22, pin, 24, and saddle, 25, the lower prong of the saddle having therein a recess, 36, and all so arranged and combined that the recesses, 35 and 36, shall operate as guides to the thread or strand passing between the ratchet and saddle.'

The claims are definite and exact, and neither is fairly susceptible of more than one construction. There is, therefore, no room for the application of the rule stated in McClain v. Ortmayer, 141 U.S. 419, 425, 12 Sup.Ct. 76, 77, 35 L.Ed. 800, 802, 'that, where a claim is fairly susceptible of two constructions, that one will be adopted which will preserve to the patentee his actual invention'; but the present case must be governed by the other rule therein stated, that, 'if the language of the specification and claims show clearly what he desired to secure as a monopoly, nothing can be held to be an infringement which does not fall within the terms the patentee has himself chosen to express his invention.'

In Water-Meter Co. v. Desper, 101 U.S. 332, 334, 25 L.Ed. 1024, 1026, it is said:

'Our law requires the patentee to specify particularly what he claims to be new, and, if he claims a combination of certain elements or parts, we cannot declare that any one of these elements is immaterial. The patentee makes them all material by the restricted form of his claim. We can only decide whether any part omitted by an alleged infringer is supplied by some other device or instrumentality which is its equivalent.'

In this case we shall determine the question of infringement by a comparison of the second and fourth claims of the patent in suit with the device of the defendant, as illustrated and described in letters patent No. 575,428, issued to O. E. Moore January 19, 1897. The complainants contend that the gist of the invention is a 'frictionally restrained, toothed wheel, which must revolve as the strand is drawn out,' and that the machine of the patent in suit was the first ever made which contained a rotating, frictionally restrained, toothed tension wheel, operating in connection with a pressure device which will cause a strand passing between said device and toothed wheel to be engaged by the teeth of the wheel in such a manner that the wheel will be certain to rotate as the strand is delivered or pulled through the tension device. It is obvious, however, that the patentee did not in his application, give to the patent office notice that he desired protection for an invention of that breadth, and that protection for a claim so broad was not intended by the grant of his patent.

The elements of claim 2 which require our particular attention are: First. The ratchet, 17, or tension wheel. Second. Parts acting to exert a frictional restraint on the wheel, and to maintain such restraint: Dog, 18, spring, 22, pin, 24, nut 21. Third. Part to hold the strand in contact with the ratchet, 17; i.e. saddle, 25. The proper tension on the strand is secured partly by the drag of the frictionally restrained tension wheel, acting on one surface of the strand, and partly by the saddle pressing upon the opposite surface of the strand; the saddle exerting an abrasive friction, while the wheel rolls with the strand, but resists its pull, through the restraint or drag on the wheel. The frictional restraint on the wheel is...