Home/U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Pennsylvania/Powell v. Leicester Mills Co.

Powell v. Leicester Mills Co.

103 F. 476, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 4821
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Pennsylvania
DecidedJuly 18, 1900
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 103 F. 476 (Powell v. Leicester Mills Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Powell v. Leicester Mills Co., 103 F. 476, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 4821 (circtedpa 1900).

Opinion

GRAY, Circuit Judge.

Complainants bring suit for alleged infringement by defendants of claims 1 and 2 of letters patent of the United States No. 510,934, December 19, 1893, for “improvements in web-holder actuating mechanism for automatic knitting machines.” The alleged infringing machines used by defendants were made for and supplied to them by the Macon Knitting Company and Joseph Bennor, intervening defendants, and Complainants’ Exhibit Defendants’ Machine is one of said machines. The patent relates to improvements in that class of straight knitting machines in which the needles are arranged in two straight rows opposed to one an[477]*477other; said needles being supported and guided upon a bed which is of the shape of an ordinary barn roof, the needles working (i. e. being successively moved up and down by means of traveling cams, one for each row of needles) in grooves whose direction is that of the rafters of the roof. The knitting is done along a line corresponding to the ridgepole, and there is a gap or slit at the ridge, through which the web of fabric goes down as fast as it is knit. In “regular” or “tubular” knitting (as, for example, in making the foot or leg of a stocking) one row of needles is actuated to knit while the yarn carrier (i. e. the device which brings the yarn within reach of the hooks of the needles) and needle-actuating cams travel in a straight line in one direction, and the opposite row of needles is actuated to knit while the yarn carrier and cams are traveling in a straight line in the reverse direction, so that in this “regular” operation of the machine each of the two sets of needles is alternately active and idle. But, in the operation of such a machine to produce a stocking, the first step is the “setting-up” course, in which the [478]*478.needles of both rows are simultaneously actuated to seize the yarn, and hold it in a zigzag line within their hooks. This delivery of the yarn to both sets of needles is accomplished by so adjusting the needle-actuating cams that during that one movement of said cams, from end to end of the machine, the needles of both rows are thrust forward to receive the yarn, and drawn back to hold it; the needles in this step of the operation being advanced to a less extent than in regular or tubular knitting. This setting-up operation,. requiring the thrusting forward of the needles of both of the two opposite sets, makes it necessary to arrange the needles of each row opposite, not the needles, but the spaces between the needles of the opposite row. This is a distinguishing characteristic of the class of machines to which the invention of the patent relates, and is that upon which depends the capacity of such machines to knit a tube closed at one end, so as, for example, to produce automatically, at one continuous operation, a’Stocking with closed toe and heel. Thus, in making a stocking, one of these machines operates (1) to produce a single setting-up or starting course by the simultaneous operation of both sets of needles; (2) to make the toe and the heel by the operation of one set only of the needles knitting during the travel [479]*479of the cam carriage or knitting head in both directions; and (3) to make the foot and leg by alternate operations, first of one and then of the other set of needles, each set knitting in one direction only. These operations, and the change from one to the other, are effected automatically by needle-actuating cams, and the shifting of said cams from one position to another by means of slide bars (G-, GT, in the patent), which slide bars are themselves shifted by contact with suitable stops on the machine just before the sliding heads reach their limit of movement in either direction.

[477]

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

Related

McDowell Mfg. Co. v. Electric Water Sterilizer Co.
255 F. 77 (Third Circuit, 1918)
Dowagiac Mfg. Co. v. Brennan
118 F. 143 (U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Kentucky, 1902)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
103 F. 476, 1900 U.S. App. LEXIS 4821, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/powell-v-leicester-mills-co-circtedpa-1900.