Bridge v. Excelsior Co.

105 U.S. 618, 26 L. Ed. 1190, 1881 U.S. LEXIS 2166

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: May 18, 1882
• Docket: 224
• Status: Published

Opinion

Mr. Justice Bradley

delivered the opinion of the court; •

This casé arises-upon & bill'in equity, founded upon certain letters-patent dated July .18,'1876, and numbered 180,001, granted to one Esék Bussey for an improvement in cooking-stoves. The appellants, as his assignees,, sue the Excelsior Manufacturing Company and the other appellees for alleged infringement, and pray an injunction; an account of profits,-and an assessment of damages. The appéllees filed an answer, denying infringement, and alleging the patent to be invalid by reason of certain older patents, and of the prior public use .of his alleged invention! The patent relates, to an oven-shelf placed pri'á level with the bottom of the oven when the door is .open, and. outside of the oven, to serve as a shelf, for pans and other yessels to rest on, when drawn out of, or shoved into, the .oven; ;:The claim' is not for the shelf, as that is admitted to be old, but for an automatic device for raising the shelf upright and .enclosing it within the door when the latter is closed, and. letting it down to a horizontal position when the door is opened. The device is a cam attached to the door, which passes under the edge of the shelf, and gradually raises it to a nearly perpendicular position as the door shuts. The shelf falls back of its own weight when the door opens, resting on the cam. The claim of the patent is as follows; — •

“ What I claim, and desire to secure by letters-patent, is —

' “ In combination with a stove-oven, a hinged shelf, fitted to fall outward and down automatically when the oven-door is opened, and to be raised up by closing the oven-dpor, adapted to operate upon it for that purpose substantially in the manner and for the purposes herein' set forth.”

The defendants made and sold stoves containing oven-shelves constructed and operated as described in letters-patent granted to E. C. Eittle and D H. Nation, dated July 9, 1878, and numbered'205,754. This shelf also has an • automatic movement, being raised when the door shuts, and lowered when it opens. But' the device by which this is accomplished is different from that of Bussey. A. cam, or. arm, is used on the door, it is true; but it does not operate under the shelf, but upon a projection attached to the upper side of it, so arranged in relation to the arm on thfe door as to raise and lower the shelf; Both devices operate upon the same principle precisely as that which has been used for a long time in raising and lowering a carriage-step by shutting and'opening the door, and in other contrivances by which the same general - effect is produced. Cam movements, and others of. like character, producing simultaneous opéra*íiohs according to the needs of the case, such as opening valves in a steam-engine as the piston ascends and descends, and a thousand other things, are in such common use, that it ■requires but very little invention to adapt them to a particular case, like the, one under consideration. We think, with the court below, that the patentee, if entitled to anything, is only entitled to the precise device which he has described and claimed in his patent; and as the defendants use a different device, they are not guilty of infringement.

Decree affirmed.