Hestonville, M. & F. Pass. Ry. Co. v. McDuffee

185 F. 798, 109 C.C.A. 606, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 5124
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedFebruary 21, 1910
DocketNo. 41
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 185 F. 798 (Hestonville, M. & F. Pass. Ry. Co. v. McDuffee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hestonville, M. & F. Pass. Ry. Co. v. McDuffee, 185 F. 798, 109 C.C.A. 606, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 5124 (3d Cir. 1910).

Opinion

BUFFINGTON, Circuit Judge.

From a decree in the court below adjudging they had infringed patent No. 546,059, granted September 10, 1895, to William M. Schlesinger, assignor to John I. McDuffee, for an electric railway, the Hestonville, etc., Railway Company and the General Electric Company appealed to this court. The opinion of the court below, reported at 181 Fed. 503, so fully sets forth the pertinent facts that reference thereto obviates repetition. On November 25, 1885, which date it will be observed -was 10 years before the grant of the patent, Schlesinger filed his application. At that time the electric lighting art was very considerably developed, but the application of electricity to street car service was in its infancy; the first successful installation having been about 1887. In the 1885 specification the invention Schlesinger sought to patent was the division of the consumption circuit of a system of electric distribution into sections, with the added provision of a safety catch for each section. Pie thus sought to localize or restrict the effects of electrical accidents, so that a mishap on one section would not interfere with the electrical operation of other portions of the system. From the tenor of his application, it is evident that it was substantially immaterial how the current was brought to the several sections, whether by one or many feeders, the gist of the invention being the confining through safety catches of [800]*800the effects of an accident to the localized section on which it occurred. In that regard he said, as shown in the file wrapper:

“My invention has relation to that form of electrical railways wherein a line of conductors having generators located along the line of railway for feeding a current to and from end to end of the line or working conductors are used; and it has for its object to obtain safety of traffic or continuity^ of travel by preventing one or more electrical defects at any point on the line stopping the traffic or travel on the whole line or any extended portion of the same. * * * To accomplish these objects I divide one or both of the line conductors into sections which are disconnected or insulated from one another and provide each section with an electrical or current safety device which is in circuit with a feeding wire or conductor common to all said safety devices, or, one or more of the safety devices may have separate feeding conductors. My Invention accordingly consists of a line of conductors one or both of which consist of insulated or disconnected sections, a safety device for each section, and a common or separate conductor for all or any of the safety devices.”

Schlesinger’s invention was embodied in each of the four drawings following:

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Bluebook (online)
185 F. 798, 109 C.C.A. 606, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 5124, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hestonville-m-f-pass-ry-co-v-mcduffee-ca3-1910.