Olds v. Brown

• Decision Date: 22 March 1890
• Citation: 41 F. 698
• Parties: OLDS v. BROWN et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Ohio

41 F. 698

OLDS v. BROWN et al.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. Ohio.

March 22, 1890

B. F Thurston and Arthur Stem, for complainant.

Parkinson & Parkinson, for defendants.

SAGE J.

The complainant's patent, No. 148,973, dated March 24, 1874 application filed March 4, 1874, is for an improvement in hubs for vehicles. It contains but one claim, which is as follows: 'A wooden hub, strengthened by one or more seamless metallic bands, which occupy annular grooves in the periphery of the hub, substantially as described. ' In the specification the complainant states that his invention consists in combining with a wooden hub one or more solid seamless metallic strengthening bands, which occupy annular grooves in its periphery. He disclaims the means for setting the bands, and declares that they 'constitute no portion of the invention which it is intended shall be covered by these letters patent, and that the operation, as well as the means employed, are to constitute the subject of separate applications for letters patent. ' The specification sets forth that the annular grooves may be cut by turning, at any desired point between the mortise line of the hub and its ends, and that their depth and width may be varied. The dimensions of the band should be such as to fill the groove and make a finish flush with the surface of the hub. The bands are preferably applied when cold, and may be composed of wrought-iron or steel, or of cast-iron or rolled brass, or of malleable iron, and of any required thickness or width but it is important that the metal employed possess fair ductile properties, and be of such a character as not to be unduly or injuriously weakened in its tensile capacity by the changes necessarily resulting from the process of setting the bands in the grooves. In the process of setting, the hub is to pass snugly over the outer shoulder of the groove, and abut with more or less bearing against the inner shoulder. The hub, with the band, is then placed endwise into a solid female die, which has an interior surface corresponding at one point, as nearly as it may be practicable to make it, with the exterior surface of that portion of the finished hub adjacent to the band. To the protruding end of the hub pressure is then applied in a line with its axis, by means of a hydraulic press, or by levers or screws. The band is thus bodily upset, its diameter reduced, its width and thickness slightly increased, and made to engage with great pressure with the wooden portion of the hub embraced by it. The specification further states that, 'when properly applied with dies of suitable size and form, the wooden portion of the hub is materially improved adjacent to these bands, because the fibers of the wood will thereby be condensed to a desirable degree. By the lateral expansion of the metal bands during the setting operation, the grooves are absolutely filled. The upsetting of the metal, which was originally soft, changes its character in hardening and condensing it. ' 'By subjecting the hub to more or less compression adjacent to the band during the setting process, it will be seen that the wood will be mechanically condensed to a greater or less degree, and that the bands will hold it in that condensed condition; and for that reason such hubs are less liable to 'check' or 'crack."

The specification concludes as follows:

'I am aware that hubs have heretofore been strengthened by metallic bands applied to their peripheries in various ways, and that a variety of means have been employed for securing them in position; also that annular grooves in hubs have been filled with metallic wire, wrapped therein in continuous lengths upon a sheet-metal strip, forming a broken band, with the whole subsequently covered with solder. Such bands obviously differ from mine, as they are not solid nor seamless, and cannot be made to so compress the wood beneath them as to compensate for that inevitable subsequent shrinkage, which occurs in all cases. I am also aware that mortised metallic flanged bands have been driven upon the wooden centers of hubs, and secured in position by abutting the edge of one end of said flanged band against an annular shoulder, and by reducing the diameter of the edge at the opposite end, so as to cause it to abut against a shoulder formed by cutting an annular recess in the periphery of the hub. Such mortised bands are employed in so-called 'flanged wheels,' and in such wheels no additional strengthening bands are requisite; for it is by the mortised bands that all strain is borne, whether it be induced by the driving of the spokes or by subsequent use of the wheel. I am also aware that a mortised metallic shell has been heretofore combined with a wooden center constructed in two sections, and that these sections have been held in position within said shell by upsetting both ends of the shell against the outer ends of the two wooden sections. My improved hub differs from any pre-existing one known to me, in being strictly a wooden hub, and in having the strengthening bands of solid seamless metal set in annular grooves cut in the periphery of the hub, and made to fill and occupy said grooves, whereby the said hub may be made of the minimum size and of any required form, yet possess the requisite strength, with positive security of the bands in position, and without any liability of their being loosened by subsequent contraction of the hub by reason of ordinary and usual shrinkage of the wood.'

The answer denies infringement; denies that the complainant was the original or first inventor; avers the invalidity of the patent for want of novelty, and for want of patentable invention; that the alleged invention and been described in certain patents and printed publications, and had been known and in public use and on sale in this country prior to the alleged invention by the patentee; that it had been abandoned, and that, by delay and laches, complainant has waived any right to relief in equity.

It is clear from the record that seamless metallic strengthening bands fixed by compression upon wheels and other objects, were known and commonly used long prior to the date of the complainant's alleged invention. A common method was to apply them heated, and allow them to contract into their places upon the wood. Another method commonly known and used was to drive the band, either hot or cold, upon a tapering surface, and thereby secure the effect of compression. Bands set by these methods, however, cannot properly be said to have anticipated the band described in the complainant's patent. They did not occupy, as do the complainant's, annular grooves, although it is true that the surface of the wood immediately under the band was somewhat compressed by the method of shrinking or of driving the band to its place. But the hot band, when contracted to position, would char the wood, and destroy its fibers and elasticity; and the driven band was not 'upset,' but, if at all changed by being driven, was stretched over the hub. In either case the band would become loose and displaced by the shrinkage of the wood. Between these bands and the complainants' there is clearly a patentable difference in favor of the latter.

Quite a number of anticipating devices-- that is to say, of bands of date later than the shrunken and driven bands above referred to-- are set up in the answer and referred to in the evidence, and the question of anticipation turns upon the construction to be given to them, and to the testimony concerning their manufacture and use. It was specially insisted on behalf of the defendants at the hearing that the claim of the complainant's patent is anticipated by patent No. 128,546, to Phineas Jones, dated July 2, 1872; by Patent No. 146,250, dated January 6, 1874, and issued to C H. Guard; by patent No. 149,625, dated April 14, 1874, and issued to Johnson V. Woolsey; by what...