Miller v. Eagle Mfg. Co.

Miller v. Eagle Mfg. Co.

Opinion

 [*187]  [**311]  [***124]    MR. JUSTICE JACKSON delivered the opinion of the court.

The appellee, as assignee of letters patent No. 222,767, dated December 16, 1879, and No. 242,497, dated June 7, 1881, issued to Edgar A. Wright, for certain new and useful improvements in wheeled cultivators, brought this suit against the appellants, who were the defendants in the court below, for the alleged infringement thereof.

The defences made in that court were that Wright was not the first and original inventor of the improvements described in the patents; that the same were shown and described in previous devices and letters patent, set forth in the answer; that the invention shown in each of the patents in suit is identical; that in each the supposed improvements relate to a spring and its attachments; that the function and operation of the parts are exactly the same in each; that one or both of the letters patent in controversy were issued without authority of law, and therefore void; that in view of the state of the art at the date of the alleged improvements of Wright, the letters patent granted to him did not exhibit any patentable invention, and for that reason [****4]  are invalid; that the defendants were not engaged in the manufacture of cultivators, but have  [*188]  sold cultivators manufactured by P.P. Mast & Co., of Springfield, Ohio, constructed under and in accordance with various letters patent owned by that company; that they sold the cultivators of this company without notice or reason to suppose that they were an infringement of the patents of Wright, and that they do not, in fact, infringe the same.

The class of cultivators to which the Wright patents in question relate are of the ordinary character of wheeled, straddled-row cultivators, having vertical swinging beams, or drag bars, to carry the shovels or plows, suspended from an arch or frame, mounted on two wheels, a tongue fastened to the frame and beams connected with the horizontal portions of the arch, which serves as an axle for the wheels, and surrounding the axle on each side a pipe box, to which the beam is secured, the pipe box revolving on the axle, and the beam carrying the shovels adjusted so as to swing up or down with the pipe box, according to the direction in which it is turned.

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