Case ID: f_73/html/0301-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

TROY LAUNDRY MACHINERY CO. v. ADAMS LAUNDRY MACHINERY CO. et al.
    (Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    March 17, 1896.)
    Patents — Infringement—Laundry Dampening Machines.
    The Wendell and Wiles patent, No. 401,770, for an improvement in dampening machines, is so limited hy the action of the patent office and the acquiescence of the patentees therein, and by the specific language of the claims and specifications, that the thin textile covering of the dampening rollers, which is an element of each claim, cannot be construed to include a thick covering of felt.
    Appeal from Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York.
    This was a suit in equity by the Troy Laundry Machinery Company against the Adams Laundry Machinery Company and others for alleged infringement of a patent for a dampening machine. The circuit court dismissed the bill, and complainant appealed.
    E. B. Stocking, for appellant.
    Wm. W. Morrill and Nelson Davenport, for appellees.
    Before WALLACE, LACOMBE, and SHIPMAN, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM.

The object of the invention described in the patent in suit, No. 401,770, its novel features of construction, and the particular object and beneficial effect of the thin textile covering which is one of the elements of the patented combinations, are fully stated in the opinion of Judge Coxe in Troy Laundry Machinery Co. v. Sharp, 54 Fed. 712, and the necessity of a restatement of these facts is obviated. In view of the limitations placed upon the claims of the patent by the action of the patent office, and acquiesced in by the patentees, and in view of the specific^ language of the claims and of the description in the patent, we are of the opinion that the “thin textile covering” of the dampening rollers which is an element of each claim cannot be construed to include a covering of felt of the thickness used in the machines of the defendant, and consequently that the defendants have not infringed the patent. The decree of the circuit court is affirmed, with costs.