United States Gypsum Co. v. Bestwall Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 21 July 1919
• Docket Number: 779.
• Parties: UNITED STATES GYPSUM CO. v. BESTWALL MFG. CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

258 F. 647

UNITED STATES GYPSUM CO. v. BESTWALL MFG. CO.

No. 779.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division.

July 21, 1919

Hill &amp Hill and Edward Rector, all of Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.

Clarence E. Mehlhope, of Chicago, Ill., for defendant.

SANBORN District Judge.

Infringement suit on two patents, Nos. 1,029,328 and 1,034,746, issued June 11, 1912, and August 6, 1912, to Clarence W. Utzman, and assigned to plaintiff. The inventions relate to the process of making plaster board for building purposes, and to the plaster board product. In the process patent the invention is thus described:

'This invention relates to the method of making plaster board and aims to produce a board which shall be more durable than any plaster board heretofore made, and which will give better results and more satisfactory service in use, and which will better withstand the handling to which all plaster board is necessarily subjected.

'Plaster boards of various kinds have been made prior to my invention, some of which have been made in molds and others of which have been made by a continuous process, consisting in applying alternate layers of plaster and paper or other fibrous material upon a traveling base sheet. The mold method of making plaster board is objectionable, however, for the reason that the size of each slab of board is necessarily limited, and, furthermore, for the reason that this method of making boards is a slow, tedious, and expensive operation. In the continuous method of making plaster board it has been the practice to superimpose the alternate layers of plaster and paper and then to trim the edges of the board, leaving the raw edges of the plaster and the raw edges of the paper at each side of the board. The paper or covering material in this construction is very easily torn, and the edges of the board are readily chipped or broken, so that after repeated handlings the boards, when ready for use, are usually mutilated to a considerable extent.

'My present invention aims to obviate the disadvantages of the boards previously employed, and to construct a board the edges of which will be entirely inclosed by a sheet of covering material and in which there will be no free or exposed edges of covering material which will be liable to be torn, loosened, or peeled back in the handling of the board.' 'Referring to Figure 5, it will be seen that the lower edge of the guard is beveled, and it will be evident that as the conveyer travels along, carrying the partially completed board with it, the inturned edge 10 will be gradually compressed into the upper layer of plastic material.'

The first claims of each of the patents follow:

No 1,029,328: 'The method of making plaster board which consists in advancing a bottom sheet of covering material, superimposing upon said sheet alternate layers of plastic material and fibrous material, holding the plastic material away from the edges of the covering material so as to leave a portion of said material exposed at each side of said layers, folding the exposed edge portions of said covering material over onto the upper surface of the upper layer of plastic material, applying a separate sheet of covering material over the upper surface of plastic material, said upper sheet being of a width sufficient to partially cover the inturned edges of said bottom sheet, applying pressure to said upper sheet to cause the plastic material...