Municipal Signal Co. v. Gamewell Fire Alarm Tel Co.

• Citation: 52 F. 464
• Decision Date: 10 August 1892
• Docket Number: 2,589.
• Parties: MUNICIPAL SIGNAL CO. v. GAMEWELL FIRE-ALARM TEL. CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

52 F. 464

MUNICIPAL SIGNAL CO. v. GAMEWELL FIRE-ALARM TEL. CO. et al.

No. 2,589.

United States Circuit Court, D. Massachusetts.

August 10, 1892

Fish Richardson & Storrow, for complainant.

Charles N. Judson, for defendants.

COLT Circuit Judge.

The present suit is brought upon letters patent No. 359,687 and No. 359,688, both dated March 22, 1887, issued to Bernice J Noyes, assignor to the complainant. In a municipal signal system it is desirable to distinguish the important from the unimportant messages received at the central station from the signal boxes. The Noyes inventions are for devices by means of which the reception of emergency signals at the main station is marked by the ringing of a bell, while in the case of ordinary patrol signals no alarm is sounded. Both classes of signals are made and received upon a single register. This result is accomplished by changes in the electrical current. In the first Noyes patent the specific method of producing the current change is by reducing the strength of the current for ordinary signals, and breaking the circuit entirely for emergency signals; in other words, the selective action is produced by varying the strength of the current. In the second patent, which is for an improvement on the first, the specific method consists in using short impulses or dots for ordinary signals, and for emergency signals, in addition to these dots, one ore more long current impulses producing dashes; in other words, the selective action is produced by variation in the duration of current impulses. The multiple signal transmitter of Noyes consists of a break wheel with insulated portions on its surface. The periphery of the disk is provided with several groups of signals, so that when brought into co-operation with a contact pen one or another signal is transmitted. The action is automatic, and does not depend on the will of the operator,-- that is, one class of messages will always be accompanied by an alarm, and another class will never sound a warning.

Infringement is charged as to the first claim of the first patent, and all the claims of the second patent. Claim 1 of the first patent is as follows:

'A system for transmitting signals from a substation to a central station over a main circuit, wherein are combined a multiple signal transmitter, which is located at the substation, and constructed and arranged to transmit several different signals by current changes of one or another character, a message receiving instrument at the central station, which receives the signal transmitted, and an audible alarm, also located at the said central station, which responds to the current change of one character only, whereby an audible warning may be sounded for some and not for other signals, substantially as described.'

It is unnecessary to consider specifically the claims of the second patent.

The substantial defense set up in this case is that, by reason of prior patents and the so-called 'Wood device,' there was nothing patentable in the Noyes apparatus. With respect to these prior patents, it may be observed, generally, that they do not show the invention of Noyes, and that it is only by reorganizing in one way or another these old devices that they can be made to anticipate the Noyes patents. The first patent relied upon by the defendants was granted to J. W Stover, July 26, 1881, for improvements in telegraphic relays. The object of the invention, as stated by the patentee, is 'to provide a compound relay, which may be operated both by the secondary currents of an induction coil and by changes in the magnetism of the core of the induction coil itself. ' This patent is for a device in which two transmitting keys and two electro-magnets may be included in the same circuit under such conditions that one electro-magnet will respond to the movement of the first key and not to that of the second, while the other electro-magnet will respond to the movement of the second key, exclusively, or to the movement of both keys. The double relay of Stover has two coils about the soft iron core, the primary coil included in the main circuit being wound outside the secondary coil, which is...