Sturgis Register Co. v. Autographic Register Co.
| Decision Date | 12 December 1934 |
| Docket Number | No. 6532,6533.,6532 |
| Parties | STURGIS REGISTER CO. et al. v. AUTOGRAPHIC REGISTER CO. AUTOGRAPHIC REGISTER CO. v. STURGIS REGISTER CO. et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Otis A. Earl, of Kalamazoo, Mich. (Chappell & Earl, of Kalamazoo, Mich., on the brief), for Sturgis Register Co. and National Carbon Coated Paper Co.
William R. Wood, of Cincinnati, Ohio (Cooper, Kerr & Dunham, of New York City, Edmund P. Wood, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Liverance & Van Antwerp, of Grand Rapids, Mich., on the brief), for Autographic Register Co.
Before MOORMAN, SIMONS, and ALLEN, Circuit Judges.
The Autographic Register Company, owner of the Shoup & Oliver patent 1,396,070 for an autographic register, brought this suit against the Sturgis Register Company and the National Carbon Coated Paper Company for infringement of the patent. The bill charged direct infringement of claims 4, 5, 6, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 47, 48, and 53, and contributory infringement of claims 54 and 55. The defenses were (1) invalidity, (2) noninfringement, either direct or contributory, and (3) the manufacture and sale of the alleged infringing devices under a license from the plaintiff. The court decreed the first group of claims valid and infringed, and dismissed the bill so far as it asserted contributory infringement. The defendants have appealed from so much of the decree as adjudged the patent valid and infringed, and the plaintiff from that part dismissing the bill as to contributory infringement.
The patent is for a device adapted to regulate the feeding through a pair of rollers of a plurality of superposed strips of paper or fabric, each strip having near each of its margins a series of longitudinal apertures, arranged in transverse alignment. Claim 5, quoted in the margin,* is typical of the claims held infringed. Interpreted in the light of the specifications, it calls for a pair of feed rollers operated by a crank, with a table or plate in front, one of the rollers being an ordinary friction roller, and the other being formed with a pair of annuli or disks, each arranged in alignment with one of the series of apertures in the paper. The function of the disks is to feed the superposed strips in exact relation to each other between the two rollers. This is done by frictional traction on the strips between the apertures in coaction with the companion roller. When the strips have been moved to a point where the disks enter the apertures in some of them, the friction becomes inactive to advance such strips, but is still active to advance the others until all are brought into alignment. Having reached this stage, the disks are ineffective to advance the strips further until after they are started. The starting is done by a manually operated trip, after which, by the turning of a crank, the feed roller and disks will advance them in accurate alignment until they are again stopped by the entry of the disks into other apertures. Thus it is that means are provided for automatic alignment or for correcting misalignment in feeding the strips or sheets through the rollers. The device is in common use in retail stores. For convenience in such use it is the general practice to interpose carbon paper between the strips and subdivide them into predetermined length by tearing lines, so that shorter strips on which entries are made may be torn off in the form of tickets, one of them furnished to the purchaser and the others used in recording the sale.
It was common practice before Shoup & Oliver to feed multiple strips of paper or fabric with interposed carbon paper between rollers, but there was inutility in such devices for commercial uses in that there was a constant relative movement between the superposed strips so that they quickly got out of alignment, with the result that entries made on the original strip in relation to the printed matter thereon would appear on the copies in a different relation to like printed matter thereon. This was the problem which Shoup & Oliver solved by devising a register that would feed the sheets in uniform alignment, and enable the operator to make an entry on the original and duplicates in the same relation to the printing thereon. This was a new and useful result in the art of autographic registers. That it was not taught by prior art autographic registers seems plain. Of the references relied on as anticipations, Casler, No. 776,723, is perhaps the closest. That patent has no commercial history. It related to a mechanism for the feeding of a...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Micromatic Hone Corporation v. Mid-West Abrasive Co.
...Mfg. Co., 263 U.S. 100, 44 S.Ct. 31, 68 L.Ed. 189. The rule has been several times applied by this Court. Sturgis Register Co. v. Autographic Register Co., 6 Cir., 73 F.2d 883; Landis Machinery Co. v. Chaso Tool Co., 6 Cir., 141 F.2d 800. The safety razor blade cases from the 2nd and 3rd Ci......
-
Autographic Register Co. v. Sturgis Register Co., 8153
...Various claims of the patent were held valid and infringed, both in the District Court and in this court. Sturgis Register Co. v. Autographic Register Co., 6 Cir., 73 F.2d 883. An accounting was had as ordered, and the District Court in the main confirmed the master's report, sustaining exc......
-
Micromatic Hone Corp. v. Mid-West Abrasive Co.
...blades. The same was true of Gillette Safety Razor Co. v. Standard Safety Razor Co., 2 Cir., 64 F.2d 6. In Sturgis Register Co. v. Autographic Register Co., 6 Cir., 73 F.2d 883, the sale of apertured strips of paper to owners of a patented register. In Landis Machinery Co. v. Chaso Tool Co.......