A. B. Dick Co. v. Underwood Typewriter, Co.

246 F. 309, 1917 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 906
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedOctober 18, 1917
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 246 F. 309 (A. B. Dick Co. v. Underwood Typewriter, Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
A. B. Dick Co. v. Underwood Typewriter, Co., 246 F. 309, 1917 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 906 (S.D.N.Y. 1917).

Opinion

HAZEL, District Judge.

Bill for injunction and accounting for infringement of patents No. 1,101,268, for an article of manufacture, No. 1,101,269, for the process of making the same, and No. 1,101,270, for the method of preparing duplicating stencils, granted on June 23, 1914, to Louis E. Fuller, patentee and assignor of complainant.. The art of producing a stencil, consisting of a sheet of paper or other fabric upon which letters or figures were formed by writing, cutting, or perforating, was known long before the grant of the patents in question. In 1874 Zuccato received a British patent (No. 3,150) for a chemical process of reproducing writing, a so-called papyrograph, which was made of a closely woven sheet of paper, sized and saturated in resinous varnish and then dried. When written on with a solu[310]*310tion of caustic soda the coating and paper base erode, and when the coating is washed ¿way along the written lines, the paper becomes porous, permitting the ink of the copying press to pass through to reproduce the writing on underlying paper. Subsequently Edison’s patent for an electric pen which pierced the prepared paper to permit ink to be applied to the writing was followed by the cyclostyle stencil in which a sheet of paper was placed upon a zinc plate and written on with a rotatable stylus having peripheral teeth, which perforated the sheet, and from which copies were made by applying ink thereto.

Next came a file plate for mimeograph copying (Zuccato’s trypo-graph) in which tiny teeth penetrated the paper pressed down upon it by hand. In these stencils, which were mainly used for writing addresses, the paper was closely woven, and the coating on one side of the paper was hard, in order to keep impervious those parts not perforated or penetrated. Zuccato, who was a prolific inventor in the art, quickly adapted stencils to typewritten matter by putting above the type surfaces small, penetrating, pinlike projections, which made holes through which the ink was forced to reproduce the typed letters, and in another patent wound wires around the roller of the typewriter to make a rough surface upon which the sheet was placed for perforation when struck by the type. Patents No. 10,869, of 1891, and No. 16,056, of 1892. At a later time a close-fibered stencil paper with hard wax coating perforated by sandpaper or bolting cloth, upon which typing impressions were made by contacting the filmy paper, was used.

In the year 1887 an important discovery was made by John Brod-rick, namely, the adaptability of Japanese Yoshino paper as a base for stencil sheets. Patent No. 377,706. Closely woven impervious paper treated with hardened wax was discarded, and an open weave paper, porous and veil-like, took its place. No sizing was added, simply a coating of soft wax to close the inherent interstices, plainly seen through a microscope, so that when the type struck the paper, the wax left the fibers at the point of contact without severing them. Brodrick’s invention became involved in considerable litigation, and various federal courts had occasion to examine his achievement in connection with the prior stale of the art. Judge Townsend, in A. B. Dick v. Henry (C. C.) 75 Fed. 388, concurring with Judge Green (A. B. Dick Co. v. Fuerth [C. C.] 57 Fed. 834), and with Judge Wheeler (A. B. Dick Co. v. Wichelman [C. C.] 74 Fed. 799, affirmed, 88 Fed. 264, 31 C. C. A. 530), substantially said that Brodrick’s conception of the use of Yoshino paper made it unnecessary to cut or perforate the paper, and that the process was an expressing or extracting process as distinguished from a perforating or cutting process. Coating with soft wax a paper having holes in it was regarded by-the learned court as materially different from prior processes wherein the paper was first coated and then holes cut in it by perforation or piercing.

The Brodrick claims were broadly construed to include any stencil sheet having for its báse Yoshino paper or Japanese dental paper coated with a substance impervious to ink. That Brodrick made an important advance in the art is herein conceded on both sides. Indeed defendant admits that such stencil paper was the only stencil paper [311]*311that could be used successfully in typewriting machines. Brodrick’s first patent expired in 1905, and his second in 1912. There were, however, certain objections to his stencil which the skilled in the art tried at various times to overcome. The number of copies that could be produced was limited, the stencil was very brittle and easily injured by changes in temperature, and the copies were often blurred.

The Dermatype stencil, as complainant’s stencil is known, is claimed to be the first stencil practically indestructible either by variations of temperature or by handling, and may be filed away for an extended period and reused for duplicating a large number of copies in good condition. The preferred solution for the production of the stencil sheets comprises gelatin, white sugar, glacial acetic acid, glycerin, water, and potassium dichromate. After the coating has been applied the sheet is dried and exposed to daylight to make it nonplastic and insoluble in water. Complainant’s claim is that its stencil sheet is normally dry, but hygroscopic and limited by the disclaimer filed herein to the extracting or expressing process, meaning thereby, as heretofore pointed out, that the film on the stencil is expressed or discharged by the stroke of the type without destroying the fibers; that the sheet for the first time is impregnated with a coagulated colloid or gelatin, rendering it impervious to ink until impressed by the type, when the fibers open for the ink to pass through, together with a tempering element for softening the colloid, and then moistened before being typed. Such method of impregnating the sheet was new and novel and of immediate value, as the vast number of sales of the product proves.

[1-4] All the claims in controversy relate generally to a stencil sheet of Yoshino paper impregnated as specified, and differ only as to their scope. Claims 2 and 22 of patent No. 1,101,268 and claims 2 and 4 of patent No. 1,101,269 alone will be set forth.

“2. A stencil blank capable of being stencilized, consisting of a dry but hygroscopic sheet of fibrous material impregnated with a coagulated colloidal substance and a tempering agent, substantially as described.”
“22. A stencil blank capable of being stencilized by pressure, comprising a sheet of fibrous material impregnated with a compound consisting of protein one part, sugar one part, glacial acetic acid one part, glycerin two parts, and potassium dichromate sufficient to coagulate the compound when exposed to light, substantially as described.”
•‘2. The process of forming a stencil sheet which consists in impregnating a sheet of fibrous material with a colloidal substance, rendering said substance normally nonplastic but capable of being temporarily softened, by treating the same with a coagulant and a tempering agent and drying the sheet so impregnated, substantially as described.”
“4. The process of forming a stencil sheet which consists in impregnating a sheet of fibrous material with a colloidal substance, rendering said substance normally nonplastie but capable of being temporarily softened, by treating the same with a chromic coagulant and a tempering agent and drying the sheet so impregnated, substantially as described.”

The defense is anticipation by the British patent No. 13,851, granted to Zuccato in 1893.

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Related

A. B. Dick Co. v. Simplicator Corp.
30 F.2d 713 (S.D. New York, 1929)
Heinke v. Chipman Knitting Mills
19 F.2d 384 (E.D. Pennsylvania, 1927)
A. B. Dick Co. v. Barnett
287 F. 573 (S.D. New York, 1922)
A. B. Dick Co. v. Barnett
277 F. 423 (Second Circuit, 1921)

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Bluebook (online)
246 F. 309, 1917 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 906, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/a-b-dick-co-v-underwood-typewriter-co-nysd-1917.