Smith v. Higgins

22 F. Cas. 561, 1 Fish. Pat. Cas. 537

This text of 22 F. Cas. 561 (Smith v. Higgins) 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
Smith v. Higgins, 22 F. Cas. 561, 1 Fish. Pat. Cas. 537 (circtsdny 1859).

Opinion

NELSON, Circuit Justice

(charging jury). The patent in this ease was originally granted to Alexander Smith, June 18, 1850. On December 10, of the same year, an undivided half of the patent was assigned to Jonathan Smith. The suit is in the name of the two. The patent was surrendered and reissued with an amended specification on May 11, 1852. The suit is founded upon this reissued patent and amended specification.

The first question to be considered by the court and jury is, what is the invention of the patentee? This we must ascertain and settle in order to be able to determine intelligibly whether or not it has been appropriated or infringed by the defendants. The invention is described by the patentee as a new and useful apparatus for parti-coloring yam.

It is therefore a patent for machinery — for the means to be used in this work. The pat-entee then refers to the modes of parti-color-ing in use at the time he made his invention; the first being by printing, and the second by dipping the skeins into a dye-vat, the part not to be dyed being clamped, or tied, or wrapped around, to prevent the access of the dye.

He then states that these methods in previous use were imperfect, the printing not admitting of permanent colors, besides requiring complex machinery, and the dyeing by clamping, tying, etc., being unsuccessful on account of the access of the dye to the parts sought to be excluded. He then speaks of the nature of his improvement, which he says consists of parti-coloring yarns that have been reeled, by means of direct immersion in the dye, by the use of movable frames, adapted to receive and hold the skeins at they are arranged upon a reel, and so combined with the dye-vat that they will permit the yarn to be let down to a determinate distance in the dye. There is then a particular description of the machinery used in this process, and finally, the more material part of the specification, particularly when we are inquiring as to the thing invented or discovered — the claim. What the patentee claims to have secured is the method substantially as described, of parti-color-ing yams which have been reeled, by direct and free immersion, by means of frames carrying the reeled yams, combined with the dyeing-vat by machinery adapted to let down and draw up the frame and measure the extent of the immersion. The reel on which the yarn is reeled (which was exhibited in court) is not a part of the combination, and as regards this question of novelty in the combination described by the pat-entee, and in which his invention consists, may be laid out of view. The thing invented, then, is this: The horizontal frame carrying the reeled yams combined with the dyeing-vat by machinery adapted to let down and draw up this frame and measure the extent of the immersion, or the extent of the line of dyeing upon the yam. In other words, the thing discovered is the combination of the horizontal frame carrying the reeled yarns with the dyeing-vat by machinery — which must always be kept in view as very important — which lets down the frame carrying the yam, and draws it up, and at the same time measures the line of yarn to be dyed.

Now, this being the thing invented — the improvement patented — the next question is, is it new and useful? It must be both in order to constitute a valid patent. The utility of the arrangement and combination I have not understood to be contested by the learned counsel for the defendants.

As to the novelty of the arrangement and combination, there has been introduced in the course of the trial, intending to bear upon this question, as well as upon the question of infringement, the previous printing apparatus, the clamping process and apparatus, and the methods of Graham, Stevenson, Whittock, and that of Kerr, one of the witnesses who testified on the part of the defendants.

Now, the question of novelty is not whether free immersion has been before used for dyeing parti-colored yarns; but whether this dyeing of parti-colored yarns by free immersion was done previous to the date of the invention of the patentee, by an arrangement and combination of machinery like that described in his patent. This is not a patent for the discovery of the idea of dyeing parti-colored yams by immersion in the dye, but it is for an arrangement and combination of machineiy, as a means to be used in dyeing parti-colored yarns by immersion in the dye. In order, therefore, to disprove the novelty of the invention, it must be shown that these previous modes used practically in dyeing parti-colored yarns by immersion, or otherwise, embraced within them this combination and arrangement of the machinery described in the patent. If it were done by modes and processes not embracing this combination and arrangement, then such previous use would not disprove the novelty of the plaintiffs’ invention.

On this point, therefore — the question of novelty — it will be your duty to look into these old modes of parti-coloring yam by immersion, or otherwise, in the dye, and say whether they contain the special combination and arrangement of the machinery described and used by the plaintiffs.

If you should arrive at a conclusion in favor of the plaintiffs as to the novelty or utility of their improvement, the next question will be as to the alleged infringement by the defendants in the adoption of machinery whereby yarn is parti-colored by immersion. That question will depend upon the fact whether or not the arrangement of the machinery used by the defendants in dyeing yarn embraces the combination of the [563]*563plaintiffs; in other words, whether the defendants’ mode and machinery embodies within it the new ideas of the patentee; whether or not they hare appropriated the ideas which lie at the foundation of the plaintiffs’ improvement or discovery.

In order to constitute an infringement, it is not necessary that the arrangement and combination of the party charged with the infringement should be the same to the eye, but in point of fact. If they embody the ideas of the patentee, and the machinery of the defendants operates by such adoption and appropriation, then, though the arrangement may be apparently different, in reality and in judgment of law an infringement exists. Hence, it will be not only proper, but essential, that the jury should look into the arrangement and operation of the machinery used by the defendants for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not it embodies within it the principle of the patentee; whether or not its successful operation is attributable to such appropriation. If it does, then it is an infringement. If it does not, then there has been no infringement.

It has been insisted by the learned counsel for the defendants that they do not uSe the reeled yarn, or rather the yams on a reel, as is done by the plaintiffs; and hence it is insisted that, in this respect, the defendants’ arrangement or combination of machinery differs from that of the plaintiffs’. It is trae, however, that the combination and arrangement of the machinery of the plaintiffs is useless, and would not be patentable without yam to be operated upon in the process of dyeing; and in order to make out an infringement, it must appear that the defendants not only used the combination of the plaintiffs, but that it is used for dyeing by 'letting down and taking up the reeled yarn into and out of the vat, and measuring the extent of the immersion at the time.

I will state this proposition again, as it is undoubtedly important.

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

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
22 F. Cas. 561, 1 Fish. Pat. Cas. 537, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smith-v-higgins-circtsdny-1859.