Sessions v. Gould

• Decision Date: 02 April 1894
• Citation: 60 F. 753
• Parties: SESSIONS v. GOULD et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

60 F. 753

SESSIONS v. GOULD et al.

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

April 2, 1894

Charles E. Mitchell and John P. Bartlett, for complainant.

Arthur v. Briesen, for defendants.

COXE District Judge.

This is an infringement suit founded upon two letters patent, viz. No. 203,860, granted to Charles A. Taylor, May 21, 1878, and No. 255,122, granted to John H. Sessions, Jr., March 21 1882. Both patents are now owned by the complainant. They are both for improvements in trunk fasteners of the variety covered by letters patent No. 128,925, granted to Taylor in 1872. This first patent was the subject of protracted litigation. It was finally sustained by the supreme court and given a broad construction in Sessions v Romadka, 145 U.S. 29, 12 S.Ct. 799.

The patents in suit were before this court on a motion for a preliminary injunction. The motion was granted, and a construction was then placed upon the second claim of the Taylor patent. Sessions v. Gould, 49 F. 855. As this art had its inception years before the patents in suit, and as the devices covered by them are only improvements upon the structure of the 1872 patent, it is clear that a broad construction of these patents is out of the question. Each inventor is entitled to have his contribution to the art protected, but nothing more.

No 203,860.

The claims of the Taylor patent are as follows:

'(1) The plate, C, of a trunk catch or fastening, when the said plate has cast thereon one or more pins or posts, b, projecting horizontally from the rear face of the said plate, substantially as and for the purposes set forth. (2) A trunk catch or fastening, consisting of the combination of the plate, C, having thereon the lug or shoulder, L, the plate, G, and the snap loop, J, substantially as and for the purposes specified. (3) A trunk catch or fastening, consisting of the combination of the plate, C, having thereon the lug or shoulder, L, and the post or pin, b, the plate, G, box or recess, H, spring, I, and loop, J, having the cam, K, on its crossbar, all substantially as and for the purposes specified.'

The defenses are lack of invention, noninfringement, and invalidity because of public use and sale by Taylor more than two years prior to February 18, 1878, the date of his application. I am not quite able to ascertain from the complainant's brief whether he relies upon all these claims or only upon the second claim. Assuming that the first claim is valid, both the first and the third claims include as an element 'the pin, b,' which is described as being cast upon the plate which forms the upper part of the fastener. As the defendants do not have this pin, they do not infringe either of these claims. As before stated, the second claim has received judicial interpretation in this court. It was construed to contain a combination of the following elements: First. The plate, C, having thereon the lug or shoulder, L. Second. The plate, G, on which is the box or recess, H, for containing the spring, I, and through which box or recess passes the crossbar of the loop, J, having thereon the eccentric or cam, K, resting on the spring, I. Third. The snap loop, J, having thereon the cam, K.

It is contended that this construction is untenable because the same reasoning which places 'the box, H,' on plate, G, must place 'the pin, b,' on plate, C, and that the plate, C, with the pin, b, cast thereon, is a necessary element of the combination.

Again it is said that the real...