St. Louis Car-Coupler Co. v. National Malleable Castings Co.

87 F. 885, 31 C.C.A. 265, 1898 U.S. App. LEXIS 2041
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedMarch 8, 1898
DocketNo. 527
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 87 F. 885 (St. Louis Car-Coupler Co. v. National Malleable Castings Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
St. Louis Car-Coupler Co. v. National Malleable Castings Co., 87 F. 885, 31 C.C.A. 265, 1898 U.S. App. LEXIS 2041 (6th Cir. 1898).

Opinion

LURTON, Circuit Judge,

after making the foregoing statement of facts, delivered the opinion of the court

The whole subject of car couplers has long been a fruitful field of invention, and no less than 6,500 patents have been issued for improvements in this single device. The particular type of coupler to which both those in. contest belong is that established by the automatic vertical plane coupler patented to Eli H. Janney, April 29, 1873, No. 138,405. This was followed by patent No. 356,024 of October 20, 1874, to the same patentee, for an improvement upon his original device, and another in 1879, and still another in 1882, and on April 2, 1878, by a reissue of his original patent, being reissue No. 8,153.

The narrowness of the field for further invention in couplers of the type now in question will not escape observation if we examine the devices covered by Janney’s patents. For this purpose we reproduce Figs. 1 and 4 from the drawings of the patent to Janney of April 29, 1873:

■ Fig. 1 represents a top plan view of two opposing couplers about to make a coupling, one open, the other closed. Fig. 4 is a transverse sectional elevation, showing the tail of the coupler-head locked within the recess of the draw-head.

Jt will be seen that this device presents the forked draw-head, which is one element in each of the claims of the Lorraine and Aubin patent here involved. One arm of this draw-head acts .as a buffer, and also as a guard to prevent uncoupling from lateral motion of the cars; to the other a coupling-head or knuckle is pivoted which swings horizontally on the pivot in opening or closing to couple or uncouple, with a twin knuckle upon an opposing draw-head. The draw-head and coupling-head of Janney’s improvement of 3.879 is shown by Figs. 1 and 2, from the drawings of patent No. 212,703:

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Bluebook (online)
87 F. 885, 31 C.C.A. 265, 1898 U.S. App. LEXIS 2041, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/st-louis-car-coupler-co-v-national-malleable-castings-co-ca6-1898.