Henry Billings Brown

Name: Western Electric Company v. La Rue — Opinion of the Court
Author: Henry Billings Brown

Summary

“Western Electric Company v. La Rue — Opinion of the Court”, is a work by Henry Billings Brown. It explores elements such as lever, sounder and screws.

Quotes from Western Electric Company v. La Rue… (Henry Billings Brown)

Henry Billings Brown, Western Electric Company v. La Rue…

“ The employment of this spring in connection with the sounder is such a new or double use as would occur to an ordinary mechanic who had seen the Edwards key in operation. It brought into play no faculty of invention. While the promotion of an old device, such, for instance, as a torsional spring, to a new sphere of action, in which it performs a new function, involves invention, the transfer or adaptation of the same device to a similar sphere of action, where it performs substantially the same function, does not involve invention. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Western Electric Company v. La Rue…

“ The claim that defendant does not use the adjusting screws is equally without foundation. Indeed, his suggestion is disposed of by defendant's own expert, who testifies to finding adjusting screws having a relation to the sounder similar to that of the screws, H, H', to the lever of the key in the patent, but he says that in the sounder they did not appear to have any effect upon the retractile force applied to the lever. It is evident, on examination, that their functions are practically the same in every particular. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Western Electric Company v. La Rue…

“ Assuming, how, ever, what as a matter of fact seems doubtful, that the lever of the sounder is not a circuit-breaking lever, the objection loses all its force in view of the language of the third claim,-the only one found to be infringed,-in which the limitation of the circuit-breaking lever is omitted, and a 'lever fulcrumed upon a torsional spring' is substituted. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Western Electric Company v. La Rue…

“ The last defense-of want of utility-is also fully met by the fact that Haskins, an employe of the defendant, after the commencement of this suit, took out the patent for a telegraph sounder, the main element of which is the torsional spring of the Edwards patent, and that defendant, upon the accounting, stipulated that a decree might be entered for a royalty of 10 cents apiece on 1,100 sounders made and sold by the defendant embodying the Edwards invention. Under such circumstances, it does not lie in the mouth of the defendant to claim that the invention is useless. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Western Electric Company v. La Rue…

“ The key transmits the message, the sounder receives it. The material part of the key is a lever which completes and breaks an electric circuit. The sounder consists merely of a lever which completes and breaks a magnetic circuit. In both cass, the lever is riveted to and supported by a flat torsional spring, which is itself supported at its ends upon upright posts, to which it is fastened by screws. The object of the spring in each instance is to allow the lever to play back and forth between the exceedingly narrow limits fixed by the set-screws. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Western Electric Company v. La Rue…

“ The main object of the invention is the substitution of this torsional spring for the ordinary pivotal support previously used, which consisted of tapering pivots or gudgeons projecting from the sides of the lever into the bearings. The testimony indicates that the pivots require very exact construction and adjustment; that they are apt to wear loose in their sockets; and that inexperienced operators are apt to turn the screws, which carry these sockets, too far or not far enough, thereby rendering the motion of the lever either too difficult or too easy. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Henry Billings Brown, Western Electric Company v. La Rue…

“ But the ends of this wire pass through comparatively large holes in the end supports, and thereby have considerable freedom of movement. The very fact that the holes are larger than the wire indicates that the wire can exert no torsional force. ”

Henry Billings Brown

Summary

Quotes from Western Electric Company v. La Rue… (Henry Billings Brown)

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