Æolian Co. V. Hallett & Davis Piano Co.

134 F. 872, 1905 U.S. App. LEXIS 5077
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts
DecidedFebruary 14, 1905
DocketNo. 1,511
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 134 F. 872 (Æolian Co. V. Hallett & Davis Piano Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Æolian Co. V. Hallett & Davis Piano Co., 134 F. 872, 1905 U.S. App. LEXIS 5077 (circtdma 1905).

Opinion

HALE, District Judge.

This bill in equity is for infringement of patents granted to George B. Kelly. The first patent is No. 356,690, dated January 25, 1887, for an improvement in mechanical musical instruments. The second patent is No. 357,933, dated July 15, 1887, for an improvement in motors for mechanical musical instruments.

At the threshold of the inquiry the defendant urges that the chain is not perfect by which the complainant derives his title to these patents. It appears in evidence that the original title to them was transferred by the patentee to the Mechanical Orguinette Company. In July, 1887, the Mechanical Orguinette Company executed and delivered to William B. Tremaine a bill of sale, conveying all of the stock in trade, assets, and property, specifically including “the patent properties which were held by the party of the first part, subject to payment of royalties, being conveyed subject to such royalties, which the party of the second part hereby assumes and agrees to pay.” The schedule annexed includes patents which are inventoried at a certain specified amount. Immediately thereafter William B. Tremaine assigned an undivided two-thirds interest in and to the property described to James Morgan and John Nichol. On the same date the said Tremaine, Morgan, and Nichol conveyed to the ZEolian Organ & Music Company. The last-named company is the complainant in this case, its name having been changed to the ASolian Company. The objection is made by the learned counsel for the defendant that the bill of sale from the Mechanical Orguinette [873]*873Company to Tremaine does not transfer the title to any patent by name, date, or number; that the schedule attached does not specify or set forth any patents; that no authority is shown in the president or treasurer to make the transfer. The other assignments are also objected to as insufficient to pass title to the patents in suit. The complainant, however, offers in evidence the fact that at a meeting of the trustees of the Mechanical Orguinette Company the president and treasurer were authorized to execute and deliver to Tremaine “a bill of sale sufficient in law to transfer to him the stock, property, and assets of the corporation.” Pursuant to this authority, it appears that the bill of sale was executed, and that at the time the company was the owner of the patent in suit. We find that there appears the affirmative intention to convey absolutely all the patents, together with all the other property of the company. The bills of sale 'offered in evidence are, in our opinion, sufficient to show the intention of the parties to transfer the title to all patents, and to sufficiently identify the patents in suit as coming within the meaning and intention of the transfer. We think that both the legal and equitable titles to these patents were conveyed by the assignments offered in evidence.

The invention of both patents in suit relate to a motor in which bellows are employed to rotate a shaft. The use of the motor is in mechanism for playing musical instruments with the purpose of moving, over a tracker board, a perforated music sheet which determines the composition to be played. The elements of the motor are a wind-chest, a bellows with a communicating air passage, a crank shaft operated by the bellows, a chambered block or valve capable of movement over the air passages and always in communication with a passage leading to the wind-chest. The use of the chambered block or valve is to alternately put the motor bellows into communication with the wind-chest and with the outer air. The use of the motor is claimed by the complainant to be for a mechanical musical instrument or for analogous purposes. It is claimed that these motors “can only be used for performing work which does not require much power, and requires ready and quick response to changes in pressure.” For such work the complainant says that it is desirable that such bellows motor shall be noiseless, durable, simple, light, compact; it is claimed, too, that its parts ought to be readily accessible; that it should be economical of power as well as simple in construction; and that there should be few devices connected with it which tend to increase the pressure of moving parts, or which tend to loss of power. In order that a motor should have all the above desired elements of a light motor for use in musical instruments and for other analogous purposes, it is urged by complainant that it should be operated by vacuum or exhaust bellows rather than by pressure bellows.

In the first patent in suit, No. 356,690, the inventor begins his specification by stating that “the object of the present invention is to provide means in a mechanical musical instrument for feeding the perforated music sheet, used in such instruments, through the instrument for the operation of the sounding devices, the winding of the music sheet upon the take-up roll, and the rewinding of the"music sheet upon the [874]*874music roll.” Claims 1 and 3 are brought in issue in this suit. They are as follows:

“(1) The combination, with a main wind-chest of a musical instrument, a bellows, and a shaft adapted to revolve in suitable bearings and connected to said bellows for operation of said shaft, of a chambered block having communication by its chamber with an air passage leading to said wind-chest and arranged to move back and forth over an air passage leading to said bellows, and thereby make and break communication between its chamber and the air passage to said bellows, said block being connected to said shaft for operation of said block.
“(3) The combination, with a main wind-chest of a musical instrument, one or more bellows, and a chambered block to each bellows, having communication by its chamber with an air passage leading to said wind-chest and arranged to move back and forth over an air passage leading to its bellows, and thereby make and break communication between its chamber and the air passage leading to its bellows, of a shaft adapted to revolve in suitable bearings and connected to each bellows for operation of said shaft, and by belt or gear connected to a music or take-up roll for winding the perforated music sheet thereon.”

It will be seen that these claims relate only to a motor for rotating the shaft for drawing the perforated music sheet over the tracker board. The patent, as shown by these claims, is a combination patent. The elements of this combination are the main wind-chest, the bellows, the shaft, the chambered block or valve communicating by its chamber with an air passage leading to a wind-chest and arranged to move back and forth over another air passage. leading to the bellows, thereby making and breaking communication between its chamber and the aitpassage to the bellows, the chambered block or valve being in communication with the shaft.

Claim 3 presents no vital elements in addition to those of claim 1. It merely shows the fact that one or more bellows may be used, and that the device is connected to a music roll for winding the perforated music sheet which causes the playing.

The instrument, as exhibited in the models and in the drawings, shows a wind-chest formed of two side boards set at an angle to each other, and united by two parallel end pieces, making a chamber in which pneumatics for operating the reed valves are located. At each end of the wind-chest are two pairs of upright bellows secured to the wind-chest by fixed boards; there are other boards adapted to swing on their hinges to and from the fixed boards. The fixed boards and the swinging boards are united by flexible material all around their edges.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
134 F. 872, 1905 U.S. App. LEXIS 5077, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/olian-co-v-hallett-davis-piano-co-circtdma-1905.