Gallahue v. Butterfield

9 F. Cas. 1093, 10 Blatchf. 232, 6 Fish. Pat. Cas. 203, 1872 U.S. App. LEXIS 1430
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York
DecidedDecember 6, 1872
DocketCase No. 5,198
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 9 F. Cas. 1093 (Gallahue v. Butterfield) 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
Gallahue v. Butterfield, 9 F. Cas. 1093, 10 Blatchf. 232, 6 Fish. Pat. Cas. 203, 1872 U.S. App. LEXIS 1430 (circtsdny 1872).

Opinion

WOODRUFF. Circuit Judge.

The bill of complaint herein is filed to restrain the alleged infringement of certain letters patent for machines for pegging shoes. A patent was granted to the complainant Gallahue, on the 16th of August, 1853, which was extended for seven years, on the 18th of February, 1867, and was afterwards surrendered and reissued under date of July 6th, 1869. Another patent was granted to the said complainant on the 29th of March, 1859, for another improvement, which was afterwards surrendered and reissued under date of June 22d, 1869. A third patent was granted to the said complainant on the 26th of August, 1862, for another improvement or improved machine. The other complainant claims as assignee of three-quarters of the right, title, and interest of the patentee in or to these letters patent. The bill alleges an infringement by the defendant of these several patents. and prays an injunction and an account of profits. &e. The answer does not deny the granting of the letters patent, or the extension and reissues alleged in the bill, but denies that Gallahue was the first inventor of the alleged inventions, denies that they were either new or useful, deifies that they were granted “according to law,” alleges that the inventions were never reduced to practice, denies that the complainants have any exclusive rights under the patents, and denies that the defendant has infringed, alleging that the machines which he has been, and is now, selling are constructed under various other patents, which are specified, and which were granted at various dates, from January 17th, 1854, to October 11th, 1S64. The answer also alleges, that the inventions claimed by the complainants were described, before the date of Gallahue’s invention, in a very great number of letters patent mentioned in the answer, and were known to a great number of persons, also named therein; and, finally, the answer alleges abandonment of these inventions, by the patentee, to the public.

The time which I have devoted to the examination and consideration of the voluminous testimony and documents put in evidence, and to the elaborate arguments of the counsel in an anxious endeavor to reach a just conclusion, and the numerous cases which are now before me awaiting examination and decision, both forbid that I should detain the parties longer in this court, for the purpose of doing more than state the conclusions to which I am brought; and the statement of those conclusions in brief must n<Jt suggest any failure to consider the points urged upon my attention, though not here separately discussed.

(1.) First I do not consider the objections urged to the validity of the reissues set up in the bill of complaint tenable. On the contrary, the improvements described in the reissues were included in, and shown by, the original record; and I find also that the invention was complete, and was reduced to practical use and adaptation to the pegging of boots and shoes.

(2.) Except so far as hereafter indicated, I find that the patentee, Gallahue, was not anticipated, in his invention, in any particular material to the decision which is below stated, and that the proof establishes that he was the first inventor of the devices secured by his patents, so far as such patents are found by me to be infringed by the de-fondant.

(3.) I find it unnecessary to enter into a detailed examination of the machine made by Amos Whittemore, of which parts were produced in evidence, to ascertain whether, or to what extent, it included a device or devices like those invented by Gallahue, because the proofs show, in my judgment, that nothing in its history is any impediment to the force, effect, and validity of the patent of the latter. It was an abandoned experiment, within the rule on that subject, not brought into effective operation, cast aside and taken apart, and, without any intention to reconstruct it, portions of its machinery were appropriated to other uses, and the remaining parts were wholly useless, as a machine, for any purpose within the purview of the invention of Gallahue.

(4.) The foregoing conclusions lead to the consideration of the specific claims in the complainants’ patents, and to the question of infringement.

1st. The first claim in the reissue oí July 6th, 1S69, No. 3,533, is as follows: “The use, in a pegging machine, of a gauge arranged in relation to the part that supports the boot or shoe, to form a bearing for the edge of the sole, and thus insure the insertion of the pegs at a uniform distance from the edge of the sole, without the use of patterns, substantially as described.”

If this claim should be construed to include any and every gauge which may be used, in [1098]*1098a pegging machine, as a guide to which, the edge of the shoe .may be applied, to regulate the distance, irom such edge, at which the pegs shall be inserted, then it is clear it could not be sustained. A gauge for that purpose had before been used, in the hand machine patented to John O. Briggs, October l)th, 1S40, and a gauge performing a like office is also found in the machine made by Leander Lackey, which was invented earlier than that of Gallahue. Indeed, the counsel for the complainants, in substance, concedes, that, if such be the construction of the claim, it must be deemed invalid, for the reason stated.

But, it is insisted, that, when read in connection with the whole specification, this claim may and should be construed as meaning the use of an adjustable gauge, in connection with the automatic movable support of the boot or shoe, while subjected to the operation of the automatic movement of the awl and driver described in the specification. The fact, that, in the Lackey machine, the gauge operated on the edge of the shoe, to guide it, while it was held to receive the awl and driver, acting automatically, to insert the peg, necessarily reduces even this construction of the claim to some extent, and requires that it be held to apply to those cases in which the specific kind of gauge described by Gallahue in this patent is used, or in which substantially the same movable support is given to the boot or shoe in the process, or, at least, in which substantially the same pegging machinery is used, for the insertion of the peg. The specific gauge used by the defendant has more resemblance to the Lackey gauge than to Gallahue’s, and the support of the shoe employed by the ■ defendant is a different mechanical structure from the movable table described in this first patent of Gallahue; and, though it may bring the machine within the range of Gal-lahue’s exclusive' right under his subsequent patent, it cannot be deemed an infringement of the claim under consideration, if such movable table be included in that claim.

There remains, therefore, only the suggestion, that this claim embraces an adjustable gauge when used in connection with a movable support to the boot or shoe, and in connection with the pegging apparatus, that is, an awl-carrier and driver operated by a cam and spring or springs. In this aspect of the claim, it may properly be considered in connection with the other claims which more specifically relate thereto.

2nd. The next claim of this reissue, alleged to be infringed, is the third; “The combination of the awl-carrier and peg-driver, each separately lifted by a cam, and driven down by a spring, substantially as described.” This I find to have been a new device, and, if the machines sold by the defendant are, in substance, the same, in this respect, as that of Gallahue, then of this claim the defendant is an infringer.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
9 F. Cas. 1093, 10 Blatchf. 232, 6 Fish. Pat. Cas. 203, 1872 U.S. App. LEXIS 1430, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/gallahue-v-butterfield-circtsdny-1872.