Yale Lock Manufacturing Co. v. Berkshire National Bank

135 U.S. 342, 10 S. Ct. 884, 34 L. Ed. 168, 1890 U.S. LEXIS 2683
CourtSupreme Court of the United States
DecidedMay 5, 1890
Docket261, 262
StatusPublished
Cited by28 cases

This text of 135 U.S. 342 (Yale Lock Manufacturing Co. v. Berkshire National Bank) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of the United States primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Yale Lock Manufacturing Co. v. Berkshire National Bank, 135 U.S. 342, 10 S. Ct. 884, 34 L. Ed. 168, 1890 U.S. LEXIS 2683 (1890).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Blatcheobd

deliyéred the opinion of the court.

This is a suit in equity, brought January 29, 1879, in' the' Circuit Court of the ITmted States for the District of Massachusetts, by the Yalef Lock Manufacturing Company, a Con■necticut corporation, and James Sargent and Halbert S. Greenleaf, composing the firm of Sargent & Greenleaf, against the Berkshire National Bank, a national banking corporation doing business at North Adams, in Massachusetts.

The suit .was brought for the infringement of two reissued letters patent. One of them is reissue No. 7947, granted November 13, 1877, to James Sargent, as.inventor, for an improvement in combined time-lock, combination lock, and bolt-work for safes,” on an application filed October 1877,' the original patent, No. 195,539, having been granted to Sargent, September 25, 1877. Only claim 3 of reissue No.. *344 7947 is alleged to have been infringed. • The other reissue is No. 8550, granted to the Yale Look Manufacturing Company, January 21, 1879, on an application filed October 14, 1878, for an “ improvement in time-locks,” the original patent, No. 146,832, having been granted to Samuel A. Little, as inventor, January 27, 1874, and having been reissued as No. 7104, to the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company, May 9, 1876, and again reissued to that company, as No. 8035, January 8, 1878. Only claims 1 and 7 of reissue No. 8550 are alleged to have been infringed.

After the filing of the bill, and by agreement of the parties, Joseph L. Hall, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was admitted as a defendant. An amended bill was filed, and the bank and Hall answered it. As. to both reissues, the answer denied that, before they were granted, the patents were inoperative by reason of a defective or insufficient specification; that any errors arose by inadvertency, accident and mistake; that any .reissues were necessary or are 'valid; and that the reissues were for the same inventions as were shown and described in the original patents. It also set up want of novelty and non-infringement.

After replication, proofs were taken on both sides, and the case was heard in the Circuit Court by Judge Lowell. His opinion is reported in 17 Fed. Eep. 531. He held that claim 3 of the Sargent reissue, No. 7947, was invalid, and ordered a decree for the plaintiffs as to claims 1 and 7 of the Little reissue, No. 8550. On the 14th of August, 1883, an interlocutory decree was entered, adjudging reissue No. 8550 to be valid, as to claims 1 and 7; that the defendants had infringed those claims; and ordering a reference to a master to take an account of profits and to report damages.

In July, 1884, the defendants were allowed to amend their answer by setting up an additional anticipation of the Little patent, proofs were taken thereon, and the case was reheard, before Judge Colt, on the new evidence. He affirmed the ■former decree, in an opinion reported in 26 Fed. Eep. 104.

The master reported $60 damages in favor of the plaintiffs, and both parties excepted to the report. A final decree .was *345 entered on the 12th of February, 1886, confirming the report, overruling the exceptions of both parties and adjudging a recovery in favor of the plaintiffs for $60 damages and certain costs, dismissing the bill as to the Sargent reissue, No.' 7947, and awarding a perpetual injunction as to claims 1 and 7 of the Little reissue, No. 8550. From this decree both parties have appealed. Joseph L. Hall haying died, his executors and trustees have been made parties in his place.

The respective specifications and claim’s of the original Sargent patent, No. 195,539, and of its- reissue, No. 7947, are set forth below in parallel columns, the parts in each which are not found in the other being in same in both. italic.. The drawings are the

Original patent, No. 195,539.
“ Be it known that I, James Sargent, of the city of Rochester, in the county of Monroe and State of New York, have invented a certain new and useful improvement in locks; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the construction and operation of the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, in which figure 1 is an elevation of my improvement applied to a safe-door. Fig. 2 is a section of the bolt of the time-lock.. Fig. 3 is an inside view of the same. Fig. 4 represents detached views of the dial, pallet, and escape-wheel. Fig. 5 is a bolt constructed, as integral with the holding-latch.
*347 My improvement relates to that class in which two independent lochs are employed *348 upon a safe, vault, or other door for the purpose- of preventing the unlocking of the door-bolts until both locks have been unlocked. Combination, or key-locks have only heretofore been used for this purpose, so far as I am .aware. As such locks are set on combinations, or ojh erated by means of keys, burglars can force the holders of .the combination or key to unlock the door, and hence such locks-are not a perfect safeguard against robbery. Clock-locks have also been used upon doors for the purpose of opening the door only at a determined hour, thus placing it beyond the power of any pen son to open the door until that hour arrives ■; but'so far as I am aware, such locks have either been used singly on a door (in which case when the lock releases the bolt or other fastening the door is unlocked and may 'be opened by any one,) or else a time-movement has .been combined directly with a lock in such a manner that the two really" constitute but a single lock, in which casé if violence is applied to the lock it' at once destroys the efficiency, of the time movement.
*349 My invention consists, primarily, in the combination, with the door-bolt, of a clock-lock and a combination or key-lock applied separately upon the door., having each an independent action, whereby the clock-lock will not release its bolt until a certain determined hour, and when it does release its bolt the combination or key-lock still remains locked, and secures the door.

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Bluebook (online)
135 U.S. 342, 10 S. Ct. 884, 34 L. Ed. 168, 1890 U.S. LEXIS 2683, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/yale-lock-manufacturing-co-v-berkshire-national-bank-scotus-1890.