Connecticut western news., 1883-06-13
INTERESTING TO FARMERS.
IMPORTANT PATENT DECISION.

IMPORTANT PATENT DECISION. The Barbed Wire Fence Controversy De- cided Against the Monopoly.
 Judge Treat, in the United States Cir cult Court at St. Louis, Mo-, has ren- dered decision of great importance to nearly every part of the United States, settling the great barbed wire fence con- troversy. The Court holds that the pat ents issued to Kelly & Glidden are void, and therefore refused to grant the prelim- mary injunction asked for by the Wash burn & Moen Manufacturing Company and Isaac l.. Ellwood. The Washburn Company likewise sought an injunction against Gustav Griesche and Henry Fuchs relative to the manufacture of patent machines for barbed wire. This injunction was refused on the ground that there was no infringement.
 The earliest barbed wire patent was issued in 1867 to one Hunt, since which time the issues and reissues have been almost innumerable. All of these, or at least all of them that possessed practical business features, have been from time to time acquired by the Wash burn < Moen Manufacturing Company of Worcester, Mass, and Isaac l.. Ell wood, of De Kalb, Jll., the plaintiffs in the cases referred to. Of all the numer- ous patents the only practical ones are those known as the Kelly & Glidden pat ents, the original issue of which has been claimed by the defendants in the suits, enlarged and amplified out Of all knowledge by subsequent reissues. It is precisely here that the controversy takes place and where the battle has been fought out. If the issues are de- clared to be within the meaning and in tention of the original patents, or If they are, in other words, valid, the defendants here will have been guilty of infringe ment. If otherwise, and the courts should declare the reissue vitally at va riance with the original patents and in valid, the business of manufacturing barbed wire will be thrown open without restriction.
 About two years ago, by decision of the United States Court in Chicago, the Washburn & Moen Company was given the sole control of all barbed wire fencing made in the United States under re- issue of the Glidden patent, which in cluded every kind of sharp pointed metal or wire fence fvr the purpose of infictdng wounds upon animals and preventing them passing the line of a fence. By this dec sion the Washburn < Moen Company, who are assignees of Glidde1l' s patent, acquired what is known among dealers in barbed wire fences as the broad claim''-a complete monopoly of barbed wire fences. Licenses were issued to other companies, permitting them to manufacture and to vend the fences under condition that they would pay a royalty on all wire sold and would not sell lower than fixed price. Thus the company and their licenses, having @ monopoly, were enabled to fix prices at figures which yielded them princely revenues, the royalties alone amounting to between $1 800, ,000 and $2, 900, ,OO0 a year.
 Subsequent to the decisions in Chicago in the Haish and similar cases the Su- preme Court of the United States ren- dered two decisions which appeared to entirely overturn the basis on which the Chicago case rested. These decisions were on entirely different subjects, but went to the principle of the right to em- body in reissue cf 8 patent matter not expressly claimed in the original
 This set the defendant in the present cases on inquiry, and the result was the establishment, both in St. Louis and in Iowa, of factories for the production oi barbed wire. Suit was instituted, first against the Iowa defendants, and an in | junction asked for to restrain them from l further operations. These cases were argued last winter at Keokuk, Ia., before | Circuit Judge McCrary and District Judge Love. The decision was reserved Subsequently eight suits were brought against the St. Louis defendants-na ly, three against Fuchs, two agains | Gates, and one against Griesche. These are the cases just decided. The subordi nate question of the validity of the pat | ents on the machines is decided against the great monopoly. The effect of this | decision is to release all restrictions o1 the manufacture of barbed wire, and sav' l millions of dollars annually to the farm CTS and ranchmen of the country tha
 has heretofore been paid in the shape O royalty.
 There were, according to the estimates
 of the best qualified judges, nearl..
 8O,O0O tons of barbed wire manufacture
 in the United States in 1882, or a tota
 length of about 500,O0O miles of wire | Upon this the firms claiming under thei
 patents the exclusive right to manufac ture barbed wire made within the yea
 in royalties from their licenses and iron
 extra profits in their own business be
 tween $4, 900, 900 and $5, ,OOO,O ,OOO.