Howell Torpedo Co. v. E. W. Bliss Co.

111 F. 906, 1901 U.S. App. LEXIS 4998
U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern New York·Decided November 19, 1901·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

THOMAS, District Judge.

This suit involves the construction and infringement by defendant of claim i of letters patent No. 311,325, issued to Admiral John A. Howell on January 27, 1895, for “certain new and useful improvements in marine torpedoes.” Claim 1 is as follows:

“(3) The combination, with the torpedo case or shell and the fly wheel mounted therein, with its rotation axis located substantially as described, to of)tain a resultant axis of motion in case of deviating forces acting on the torpedo, of steering mechanism, and suitable devices for controlling the same, arranged and operating substantially in the manner hereinbefore set forth, whereby said steering mechanism shall be brought into action upon occurrence of the resultant motion, and when thus brought into action shall be caused to set up an opposite deviating- force, which will counteract and neutralize the initial extraneous deviating force.”

It seems to be undoubted that Admiral Howell was the first person to suggest and to use a rapidly revolving fly wheel in a marine torpedo (1) to preserve fixity of direction, (2) to steer the 'torpedo against the influence of deviating forces. The conception of both purposes is embodied in the letters patent mentioned, and of the first use iti letters patent issued to the same inventor in 1871. The conception of this double use was the beginning of the art, and from it has sprung all essential knowledge respecting the directing and steering of torpedoes, although different and better details in the mechanisms employed have been devised by others. Although the merit of the primary conception that fixity of direction and ability to steer marine torpedoes could be acquired by the use oí a revolving fly wheel adjusted in the torpedo is due to Admiral Howell, the conclusion cannot be escaped that claim 1 limits the use of the art- so, created and developed by the inventor, as regards steering, to steering mechanism brought into action by resultant motion, and that the letters show 110 appreciation of the steering mechanism employed by( the defendant. The discussion can proceed clearly only by a description of the device known as a “gyroscope” and an explanation of its phenomena; for, although he does not seem to have identified specifically his proposed mechanism with the gyroscope, nor, at the outstart at least, to have understood that he was utilizing the laws, of that instrument, yet the fly wheel proposed to be used by Admiral Howell in the torpedo, in connection with the torpedo’s outer shell and the water, is in fact a gyroscope, and obeys its laws. If a swiftly revolving fly wheel be adjusted so that its axis is free to take .any direction, its axis, in absence of external disturbing forces, will, remain nearly invariable in direction. This, following the descriptive articles, may be called “the stability of direction oí the axis of rotation.” The fly wheel persists in rotating in the given direction, and so its axis tends to resist any deflecting influence. The gyroscope proper usually is constructed by placing the fly wheel so that it may rotate inside a circular ring around its shorter axis, the axis running [908] on pivots situated at opposite ends of the ring’s diameter. This ring, with its supported fly wheel, is made movable inside a second ring, and around an axis at right angles to the axis of the fly wheel. This second ring in turn, with its contents, is adjusted to rotate inside a third ring, and around an axis at right angles to each of the others. The figure shows a gyroscope with three outer rings, K, L,'and M. For the purposes of the following discussion, L, will be termed the outer ring, and M will be disregarded.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Howell Torpedo Co. v. E. W. Bliss Co., 111 F. 906, 1901 U.S. App. LEXIS 4998 (circtedny 1901).

111 F. 906 (Howell Torpedo Co. v. E. W. Bliss Co.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Hawes v. Wm. R. Trigg Co.
65 S.E. 538 (Supreme Court of Virginia, 1909)