Home/U.S. Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey/Weisgerber v. Clowney

Weisgerber v. Clowney

131 F. 477, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4917
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey
DecidedJuly 20, 1904
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 131 F. 477 (Weisgerber v. Clowney) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Weisgerber v. Clowney, 131 F. 477, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4917 (circtdnj 1904).

Opinion

ARCHBAED, District Judge.1

There are two patents in controversy in this case — one mechanical and the other for a design; the subject of each being a rolling chair such as is in vogue on the board walk at Atlantic City, where both the parties to this litigation are engaged as competitors in furnishing these vehicles for public use. The mechanical or functional patent was applied for December 7, 1900, and obtained June 4th following; and the improvement which it covers consists in providing such chairs with screens or guards for the [478]*478wheels and the adjacent running gear, to prevent the contact o£ skirts and garments. In wheeling these chairs through the crowds which throng the thoroughfares where they are used, and also in getting in and out of them, there is danger that the dresses of ladies will be blown against the axles and be marred with grease, and even the trousers of men are not entirely exempt. It was definite public complaint on the subject that led to the present device. Notwithstanding this useful purpose, however, it is a question how far the simple providing of a screen or guard for the wheels of such a conveyance involves the exercise of invention. There is nothing new in the idea, even with regard to rolling chairs; the only difference being that heretofore the wheels have not been so completely screened or covered. But as a mere matter of extension or enlargement, this would not seem to be an inventive advance, nor to involve anything more than adaptive me-chanical skill. It is not necessary, however, to definitely decide the .question of invention, because it is clear that, whatever be the legal value of the patent, the defendants do not infringe its terms. The first claim, which is the one relied on, is as follows:

“(1) A rolling chair provided with an arm-rest, and a wheel-screen continuing downwardly from said rest, and extending from side to side of the frame below said rest, and swelled outwardly over the wheel.”

It is a mere repetition of the words of the claim to say that the guard •or screen which is so provided must, as an essential characteristic, “swell outwardly over the wheel”; and this calls, if not for a strictly convex surface, at least for one that bulges or bellies outwardly, and is not satisfied by one that is flat. A reference to the specifications, as well as to the diagrams which accompany the patent, confirms this view:

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Bluebook (online)
131 F. 477, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4917, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/weisgerber-v-clowney-circtdnj-1904.