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Tiffany v. Paper Products Co.

253 F. 953, 165 C.C.A. 395, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1624
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedOctober 28, 1918
DocketNo. 3182
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 253 F. 953 (Tiffany v. Paper Products Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tiffany v. Paper Products Co., 253 F. 953, 165 C.C.A. 395, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1624 (5th Cir. 1918).

Opinion

JACK, District Judge.

The appellant has appealed from a decree dismissing his bill of complaint, charging infringement of a patent to one Charles Gess, granted March 7, 1911, on application filed January 3, 1911, covering an improvement in the construction of a cone tube adapted for use in knitting machines as a support for masses of yarn, from which the yam is drawn to the knitting machine which knits it into fabric.

The cone patented is made of compressed paper or pasteboard with roughened outer surface to hold the yarn, which is wound on it axially as shown in illustration:

[955]*955At the point of the cone the paper is smooth, and the edges turned in and rounded in an arch or dome shape, so as to practically or quite close the opening in the apex. The improvement on the old cone, which had been in use many years, was in thus smoothing and turning in the point. The new cone, in contradistinction to the old, is generally known as a round-nosed cone; the old cone being generally^referred to as a square-nosed cone, though this latter term is misleading, as the point is not square, but circular, and flat, instead of arched, as in the Gess cone.

The chief advantage claimed for the Gess patent is that it removes the sharp edges, which are easily mashed outward, and on which the yarn, as the top of the cone'becomes bare in unwinding, frequently catches and breaks.

In addition to the advantage claimed for the■ “round-nosed” cone in the unwinding of the yarn, it is claimed that its arched formation gives it greater strength, so that it stands greater weight and is less apt to be crashed in shipping. This, however, is not one of the advantages claimed for it in the specifications, and the drawing indicates a central opening left in the apex, although the patent suggests that the tip be in-turned “preferably so as to substantially, if not wholly, close said tip end.”

The fundamental purpose of the patentee was to make a cone from which all of the yarn could be unwound, eliminating the danger,of the last few rounds catching and breaking on the edge of the cone; hence the name which he gave it, “Knitall.”

The sole question at issue is the validity of the patent. The trial court, in dismissing the bill, held that the improvement in the cone did not involve invention, but was merely such an improvement as would have readily occurred to any one skilled in the art.

“Even assuming, then, that this round-nosed cone had not been anticipated in the prior art, if it is a thing which ‘would naturally and spontaneously occur to any skilled mechanic or operator, in the ordinary progress of manufacturers,’ it is not a patentable invention. The distinction between mere mechanical knowledge or the knowledge of one familiar with the particular art or trade, on the one hand, and the exercise of the creative faculty or the faculty of invention, on the other hand, is at times quite difficult. There may be some dilliculty about it here, but it seems to me that, the mere inturning of the edges of the square-nosed cone which had been in use for many years, and turning it in so that the ragged edges of the square-nosed cone would not ho there to intercept the movement of the? yarn or thread, is a thing which would occur readily to any one skilled in the art or even reasonably familiar with the business of spinning yarn and adapting the same to be used readily in knitting mills. It is not right to the public to class it as having been such an invention or discovery as is patentable.”

The evidence shows that Gess* idea was not a new one. It had been applied by McCausland in the cop tube many years before. The cop tube, like the cone, was, and still is, used as a support for yarn. " Mc-Causland’s patent specifically provides for the turning in of the edge of the smaller end of the tube (see illustration) and the same idea is also found in several wooden bobbins with rounded noses.

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Related

Abrahams v. Universal Wire Co.
10 F.2d 838 (E.D. New York, 1926)

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Bluebook (online)
253 F. 953, 165 C.C.A. 395, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 1624, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tiffany-v-paper-products-co-ca5-1918.