Standard Caster & Wheel Co. v. Caster Socket Co.

• Decision Date: 17 December 1901
• Docket Number: 1,016.
• Citation: 113 F. 162
• Parties: STANDARD CASTER & WHEEL CO. v. CASTER SOCKET CO., Limited.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

113 F. 162

STANDARD CASTER & WHEEL CO. v. CASTER SOCKET CO., Limited.

No. 1,016.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

December 17, 1901

Willard Parker Butler, for appellant.

Arthur Denison, for appellee.

Before LURTON, DAY, and SEVERENS, Circuit Judges.

LURTON Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a decree sustaining two patents as valid and finding infringement. Both patents belong to the appellee the Caster Socket Company, and both relate to improvements in furniture casters. The first patent involved was issued May 6, 1885, to Julius Berkey, and is numbered 318,533; the second is dated July 13, 1886, is numbered 345,613, and was issued to Julius Berkey and Wm. R. Fox.

1. The Berkey patent is for an improved socket for receiving the shank of a furniture caster, said socket being provided with a spring made integral with one side of the socket, and from same material. The object of this integral tongue or spring is to hold the caster in place so that it will not drop out when the furniture is lifted from the floor, but not so firmly but that it is readily removed and inserted. The socket is described as made in two parts, which when in use are put together, thus forming a socket, which may be driven into the opening provided for it. To better understand the device, we insert below certain drawings from the specifications:

(Image Omitted)

Fig. 2 of the drawing is a plan view of the half socket 'A,' and Fig. 3 is a sectional view of the same on the line X-X of Fig. 2. Fig. 5 is a plan view of the half of the socket without the spring tongue, provided with a ridge for holding the ball of the caster shank. Fig. 6 is a sectional view of the same half socket on line Y-Y of Fig. 5 Fig. 7 is a sectional view of the entire socket in position in the furniture with caster in place. The only claim of the patent is in these words:

'In a caster socket, the half socket, A, provided with a tongue, a, integral with and formed of a part of the half socket, A, substantially as and for the purposes described.' The prior art shows many forms of what are known as 'hold-up casters.' The patent to Kane & Brown of February 6, 1866, is beyond all question an anticipation, unless the fact that Berkey's spring is made integral with one-half of his socket constitutes a patentable improvement. The Kane & Brown patent was for a socket made in two parts, each half containing a curved, flat spring 'riveted in the inside,' as described in the specifications. This spring performed the same function as the integral spring of the Berkey patent, and, to quote from the opinion of the court below, 'only differs in that the tongue is mechanically attached, while the tongue in the Berkey device is formed out of one side of the socket. ' But is the mere making in one piece a structure which had theretofore been made of two or more pieces mechanically attached invention? Or, to put it in another form, is it a patentable invention to substitute for a riveted spring in a caster socket a spring made integral with the socket? A spring, either made integral with the supporting member or mechanically attached, for holding a pintle in place, was not new, and this the patentee concedes on the face of his specifications when he says, 'I am aware that a spring is not broadly new for holding a pintle in place. ' The only ground, then, upon which it can be urged that Berkey has made a patentable improvement over the socket and spring of Kane & Brown, to say nothing of a long line of caster devices not so clearly approximating Berkey, is that Berkey has provided a spring made integral with one-half of a socket, in place of a spring riveted to the socket. In doing this he has not taken the idea of an integral spring from what counsel call the 'furniture caster art,' but has found such integral spring in common use in other arts as a well-known method of seizing and holding some other part of a structure in place. A large number of patents have been filed by appellant for devices in which a spring tongue or spring finger is shown attached integrally to the supporting member in distinct on to being riveted thereto. Some of these are in somewhat analogous arts, as in watch sockets, pen and pencil sockets, candle sockets, etc. We need not specially consider these, for in the printed brief of the very frank counsel for the appellee it is admitted 'that a spring tongue or a spring finger formed of the same piece of metal as the body of the article, and adapted to seize and hold some other article placed in contact therewith, was a common thing in sheet metal structure. ' But it is said that in the 'furniture caster art' such a spring made integral with the caster socket is not shown, and that it may be invention to transfer a device from one art to another. For this, C. & A. Potts & Co. v. Creager, 155 U.S. 597, 15 Sup.Ct. 194, 39 L.Ed. 275, is cited. But the transfer has plainly been made from arts where the spring was integral with a socket, and where its purpose and function was precisely that to which it is applied in Berkey's device. No change in form has been made to adopt the device to a new application. No difficulties of adaption have had to be cleared away. Such a change from even a nonanalogous art cannot be regarded as involving invention. The case in this aspect is governed by Stearns & Co. v. Russell, 29 C.C.A.

121, 85 F. 218, where Judge Taft, for this court, gave thorough consideration to the limits of the doctrine of C. & A. Potts & Co. v. Creager. There a device taken from button-making and printing-press machinery, for lifting and holding small articles by exhausting the air in hollow points, and applied in the pill-making art to hold pills while dipping them in a bath for the purpose of coating them in gelatine, was held not to involve invention. Said the court, in that case:

'Here the old use was lifting and holding paper and small articles, and the new was lifting and holding pills. We are of opinion that, notwithstanding the utility and success of the new application of the device to pill-dipping, the circumstances that no change or form was necessary to the new application, and that the functions or purposes new and old were not wholly different and distinct but were substantially the same, make this a different case from Potts v. Creager and lead to a different result.'

To the same effect is the decision of this court in L. Schreiber & Sons Co. v. Grimm, 19 C.C.A. 67, 70, 72 F. 671, 674, where a ball and socket joint was applied in a device for furnishing an adjustable seat for caster support. It was urged to be invention to carry the device from other arts to one in which it had not been used. Speaking for the court, Judge Severens said:

'The ball and socket-joint was a common construction, and was in universal use in mechanics wherever the requirements indicated its utility. In this instance the requirement was for a joint between the saddle and its seat, which would permit the saddle to rock laterally and longitudinally so as to permit the surface of the saddle to adjust itself to the surface of the casks. The ordinary hinge susceptible of only one of these movements would not answer the purpose. It would seem that it would be obvious to a mechanic fairly skilled in his business to meet the requirement by interposing the ball and socket device. Again, no new appliances are here provided which affect the operation of the joint. That is perfect for all the functions that are required of it, and there is no new result substantially distinct in its nature. It is simply the case of an employment for a new use, and nothing more, and falls within the general doctrine of those cases in which it has been so many times held that the mere extension of a well-known device into another field of usefulness, where the transfer does not involve the faculty of inventive genius, will not

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