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Carley Life Float Co. v. United States

63 Ct. Cl. 517, 1927 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 284, 1927 WL 2974
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedMay 9, 1927
DocketNo. 34647
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 63 Ct. Cl. 517 (Carley Life Float Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Carley Life Float Co. v. United States, 63 Ct. Cl. 517, 1927 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 284, 1927 WL 2974 (cc 1927).

Opinion

Booth, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

Plaintiff company, a West Virginia corporation, sues to recover for an alleged infringement of a patented device. On May 14, 1902, Horace S. Carley filed an application for letters patent on certain new and useful improvements in life rafts. On June 18, 1903, Carley duly assigned to’ plaintiff his title and interest in said application; and on July 21, 1903, letters patent were granted to Carley and duly issued as No. 734118. This litigation is the result of a series of contracts entered into by the Government with the Athens Shipbuilding Corporation of New York for the manufacture and delivery to the Government of a number of “ elliptical tubular life floats.” The plaintiff contends that the life floats manufactured by the Athens Company for the Government under the above contracts are duplicate copies and exact reproductions of the life float covered by Letters Patent No. 734118. The findings set forth claims 1, 2, 3, and 4 of Carley’s patent — i e., the claims involved. The defendant rests it,s case upon two primary defenses: First, claims 1, 2, 3, and 4 are challenged as invalid because they recite an inoperative structure, one lacking in utility and anticipated by the prior art. Second, granting the validity of the claims, they were not infringed by the defendant for the reason of nonuser. The record is a large one. Carley was a practical sailor. He became interested in life-saving devices prior to 1899, for, as appears from Finding VI, he secured on July 4, 1899, a patent for a lifeboat.

The prior art discloses that antedating Carley’s advent into the field there existed at least four types of life-saving apparatus, (1) lifeboats capable of expeditious launching from the decks of ships; (2) life rafts to be thrown overboard from the deck of the ship, or to be loaded with pas[525]*525sengers and float off when the ship sank; (3) individual life preservers adjustable to the body and capable of sustaining persons afloat in the water, and (4) life buoys, a circular device to be thrown overboard and grasped by a person in the water. Carley originally conceived the idea of deviating from the existing types in the important particular of designing a collapsible and reversible life float capable of performing a service superior in extent to and available with greater expedition than anything which had gone on before. What he was seeking to do was to construct a life float so compact when collapsed that great numbers could be readily carried aboard ship, and when cast overboard in times of excitment and emergency would not fail to operate, accommodating the maximum number of passengers. To this end the inventor designed his first float, and, as much stress is put upon the claims of patent No. 627979 as anticipatory of certain elements in the patent in suit, discussion of the same becomes important.

Carley’s first patent, No. 627979, is illustrated by the accompanying figure.

The predominating ideas of the inventor in this patent are illustrated in the attempt to specify and construct a lifeboat collapsible, reversible, noncapsizable, and of sufficient strength to withstand the pressure of sudden usage at sea. Departing from the raft type of life-saving devices, Carley was impressed with the making of a float more in keeping with the lifeboat type, wherein he employs a suspended platform or bottom by means of a flexible netting attached to the inner side of a buoyant frame, resulting in a partial submergence of the passengers utilizing the same. Reversibility was a new idea. Carley’s patent illustrates the conception; no matter which side of the buoyant frame strikes the water, the float is available immediately. To accomplish the result, the claims of the patent disclose a construction embodying an elliptical float body; i. e., buoyant body around which is encircled at intervals rings d2 of rope or metal, fitting loosely. Upon each of the loose-fitting rings d2 inside the float body is attached slidable eyelet d1, which are also attached to the upper edge of the netting,

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Related

Carley Life Float Co. v. United States
74 Ct. Cl. 682 (Court of Claims, 1932)

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Bluebook (online)
63 Ct. Cl. 517, 1927 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 284, 1927 WL 2974, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carley-life-float-co-v-united-states-cc-1927.