Schillinger v. Gunther

21 F. Cas. 693, 15 Blatchf. 303, 3 Ban. & A. 491, 1878 U.S. App. LEXIS 1962
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York
DecidedOctober 17, 1878
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 21 F. Cas. 693 (Schillinger v. Gunther) 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
Schillinger v. Gunther, 21 F. Cas. 693, 15 Blatchf. 303, 3 Ban. & A. 491, 1878 U.S. App. LEXIS 1962 (circtsdny 1878).

Opinion

BLATCHFORD, Circuit Judge.

The plaintiff’s patent is for an improvement in concrete pavements. Such pavements existed before the plaintiff’s invention. The specification of the patent states that the invention “relates to a concrete pavement which is laid in sections, so that each section can be taken up and relaid without disturbing the adjoining sections.” The invention relates merely to the laying of the pavement in sections, so as to “allow the blocks to be raised separately without affecting the blocks adjacent thereto,” and so as to allow “the several blocks to heave separately from the effects of frost.” There is nothing new in the composition of the pavement, as one formed of concrete made “by mixing cement with sand and gravel or other suitable material, to form a plastic compound.” The point of the invention, as set forth in the specification, is, that, the pavement being made in sections, the joints between the sections have placed in them “strips of tar paper, or equivalent material, arranged between the several blocks or sections, in such a manner as to produce a suitable tight joint and yet allow the blocks to be raised separately without affecting the blocks adjacent thereto.” It wTas not new to lay concrete pavements in sections. The [694]*694plaintiff, after this suit was brought, filed a disclaimer disclaiming any claim merely to the laying of a concrete pavement in detached blocks or sections, without the interposition between the blocks or sections of the tar paper or its equivalent, and admitting that it was not new to lay a concrete pavement in sections. As the specification, before the disclaimer was filed, stated, the concrete. when laid in blocks without the interposition of the tar paper or its equivalent, in the joints between the blocks, would shrink in setting, so that the second-laid block would not adhere to the first-laid block, and the joints would “soon fill up with sand or dust,” and the pavement would be “sufficiently tight for many purposes,” while the blocks would be “detached from each other,” and could be “taken up and relaid, each independent of the adjoining blocks.” The disclaimer “disclaims the forming of blocks from plastic material without interposing anything between their joints while in the process of formation.” By the “tight joint” produced by the interposition of the tar paper or equivalent material, the specification states, that the patentee means, that the tar paper “constitutes a tight water-proof joint.” The specification sets forth, that, after one block or section is completed, the tar paper is placed along the edge where the next block is to be formed, and the plastic composition for the next block is put tip against the tar paper; that the tar paper (lues not adhere to the block first formed, when placed against it, although it may adhere to the edges of the block formed after it is put in its place in the joints: and that, lienee, the joints between the blocks are free, so that each block can -be removed separately. The specification describes the mode of making the blocks to be, to spread the plastic mass on the bed of the pavement, “either in moulds or between movable joists of the proper thickness,” so as to form the edges of the blocks, one block being formed after the other, the joists or partitions between the block first formed and the block next to be formed being removed after the block first formed has set, and the second block being next formed, “each succeeding block being formed after the adjacent blocks have set.” Nothing is claimed as new in respect to this mode of forming blocks of concrete pavement. The sole claim of the patent, left after the disclaimer, is this: “The arrangement of tar paper, or its equivalent, between adjoining blocks of concrete, substantially as and for the purpose set forth.” It was, therefore, open to the defendant to lay a concrete pavement in detached blocks or sections, by the use of moulds, or movable joists or partitions, in the manner described in the plaintiff’s specification, each succeeding block being formed after the adjacent blocks have set, and, to avail himself of the fact affirmed in the plaintiff’s specification, that, without the use of tar paper, or its equivalent, interposed in the joints, the concrete will, in setting, shrink, so that the second block, when set, will not adhere to the first, and the blocks, when completed, will be detached from each other, and thus to make a concrete pavement in sections, which can be taken up and relaid, each independent of the adjoining sections. It may be, that, without the use of something extraneous to make a joint, such as the permanent interposition of tar paper or equivalent material between the blocks, or the creation of a joint, by inserting a trowel or other cutting instrument between the blocks, and then removing the instrument, leaving the joint an open one for the time, the detachment of the blocks from each other will not be as effectual or complete as when a joint is formed by the interposed tar paper or trowel, and the blocks cannot be as easily or completely ■ taken up and relaid, each independent of the adjoining blocks. The claim of the plaintiff’s patent is for the interposition of the extraneous material to form the joint, whether the permanent tar paper or the temporary trowel or cutting instrument. It is for the artificial division of the pavement by the joint thus made, aside from, and in addition to, any division resulting from the shrinking, in setting, of the concrete in the second block, when placed against the completely set concrete in the first block. I do not understand that the plaintiff, by his disclaimer, affirms that anything stated in his specification is not true, or affirms that it is not true that if the sections are made without the interposition of anything, either permanently or temporarily, between the sections, the blocks will be “detached from each other, and can be taken up and relaid, each independent of the adjoining blocks.” All that the disclaimer affirms is. that the plaintiff was not the first to invent what he disclaims, but that it was previously invented by some one else. It does not affirm that the plaintiff did not invent it at all, or that the effect set forth in the specification as resulting from laying the pavement with nothing interposed in the joint, either permanently or temporarily, will not result. A correction of a mistake as to the statement of the effect of laying the pavement in sections, without interposing anything in the joint, is the office of a reissue and not of a disclaimer.

There was an interlocutory decree for the plaintiff on the 22d of April, 1S75, adjudging that the plaintiff's patent was valid, and that the defendant had infringed it, and referring it to a master, “to take and state and report to the court an account of all such concrete pavement or sidewalk made, or caused to be made, or used or sold, by the said defendant, since the 2d day of May, 1S71, and also the gains and profits which the said defendant has received by or from the manufacture, use or sale of the said patented improvements; and that he also ascertain and report what, if any, damages the said complainant has suffered or sustained, by reason of the said infringement, over and above and be[695]

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
21 F. Cas. 693, 15 Blatchf. 303, 3 Ban. & A. 491, 1878 U.S. App. LEXIS 1962, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/schillinger-v-gunther-circtsdny-1878.