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Allison v. Trustees of New York & Brooklyn Bridge

29 F. 517, 1886 U.S. App. LEXIS 2493
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York
DecidedDecember 23, 1886
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 29 F. 517 (Allison v. Trustees of New York & Brooklyn Bridge) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Allison v. Trustees of New York & Brooklyn Bridge, 29 F. 517, 1886 U.S. App. LEXIS 2493 (circtsdny 1886).

Opinion

Wallace, J.

The only issue between the parties is whether the rod coupling of the defendants is an infringement of letters patent No. 105,-[518]*518290, granted to the complainant, July 12, 1870, for an improvement in pipe couplings. The object of the invention described in the letters patent is to effect a perfect and secure junction of tubes, pipes, rods, etc., with a socket or sleeve designed to receive and retain them when the ends of two rods or pipes are brought into connection in the socket.. The specification states that the invention “consists of a coupling in which tapering and vanishing screw-threads on the ends of the tubes, pipes, rods, etc., to be coupled together, are combined with a socket having internal vanishing and tapering screw-threads corresponding to those on the tubes, rods,” etc.

In the accompanying drawings, Fig. 1 represents an exterior view, partly in section, of the ends of two pipes coupled together according to the invention; Fig. 2 represents the ordinary mode of coupling pipes together; and Fig. 3 illustrates the advantages of the invention.

The specification states that—

“It has been usual to cut a slightly tapering screw on the ends of the adjoining tubes, while an internal screw" or thread, without any taper, was formed in the socket; hence but a portion of this internal thread of the socket was in proper binding contact witli the threads of the pipes, as is clearly shown in figure 2; the greater portion of the threads, both on the tubes and in the socket, being of no avail as a medium of effecting a tight junction of the tubes.”

After pointing out the defects in and objections to such screw couplings, the patentee proceeds in the specification as follows:

“In order to obviate these objections, I cut on the ends of the pipes, A77 and A"7 (Figure 3,) a tapering screw. Instead of cutting the thread of this screw to one uniform depth, however, I so cut it that it shall gradually vanish until it disappears at the exterior of the tube as shown at T, figure 3. It should be understood, however, that the thread of the screw does not vanish so abruptly as is shown in that figure, which is exaggerated, with the view of rendering more apparent the advantages of my invention. The socket, B, figure 3, instead of having a screw-thread cut through it as in figure 2, has two screw-threads, tapering, one in one direction for receiving the end of one tube, and the other in another direction for receiving the end of the other tube, the. tapers of each screw corresponding with that of the tube which it has to receive, and the screw-thread vanishes to correspond with the vanishing thread of the tube, as clearly indicated in the drawing.”

The claim of the patent is as follows:

“The rods or tubes, A, A7, having tapering ends and tapering threads upon the same, in combination with a sleeve having tapering sockets and threads corresponding to those of the rods, as set forth.”

The defendants contend that their coupling does not infringe this claim, because, although their tube is cut with a vanishing thread, and their sleeve has a vanishing thread to correspond to that of the tube, their coupling docs not have a rod with a tapering end or screw, or a tapering socket. In their rods the threads of the screw surround a cone-shaped stem, but the exterior lines of the threads form a cylinder, and not a cone-shaped or tapering end or screw; and the exterior lines of their sleeve form a cylindrical chamber, and not a cone-shaped or tapering chamber.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
29 F. 517, 1886 U.S. App. LEXIS 2493, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/allison-v-trustees-of-new-york-brooklyn-bridge-circtsdny-1886.