Samuel Blatchford

“ This invention relates to an improvement in sectional honey frames, the object being to so construct them that they shall be stronger and in a more portable form than the frames now used for such purposes; and the invention consists essentially in forming the frames from a single blank or piece of material having all the necessary grooves and recesses required to form a complete frame cut in it, the ends of the blank being notched or dentated, and angular grooves cut across it at those points which are to form the corners. ”

“ It is urged by the plaintiff that it is shown that the defendant's section is to be used with the comb foundation or attachment made by the putting by the user of pieces of wax on the section. But this is not a mechanical equivalent in the blak for the longitudinal groove, any more than, in Gage v. Herring, 107 U.S. 640, 648, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 819, the person who shovelled or swept up, by manual labor, the meal deposited upon the floor of the dustroom, was a mechanical equivalent, in the sense of the patent law, for the automatic conveyor shaft in the dust-room. ”

“ As the sides of the grooves, c, are inclined towards each other at a right angle, it follows that, when the blank is bent into the form of a frame, these grooves make perfectly fitting interjoints at three of its corners, the fourth corner being that at which the ends of the blank are united to each other by means of the interlocking teeth formed thereon. ”