The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1889-07-23
IMPORTANT PATENT DECISION.
Abandoned Applications No Bar to Subse-
quent Grant of Patent to an Inventor.

qucnt OIdub Ol Il dtcut W an AnScntoTs
WASHINGTON. July 2a.-The Commits
sioner of Patents has decided, on final
appeal, well-fought Patent Office con-
troversy, involving the exclusive right
under letters patent in and to rolled steel
car wheels and the manufacture thereof.
The actual parties to the controversy are
the Fowler Cast-steel Car-wheel Company.
of Chicago, and the Pittsburg Steel-cast-
ing Company, of Pittsburg, Pa. The proofs
showed that long time after the Fowler
steel car wheels had been publicly pro-
duced in Pittsburg by means of a hundred
ton machine, which had been built in that
city under Mr.. Fowler's direction for his
company, the Pittsburg Steel-casting Com
pany commenced producing car wheels of
a substantially similar character, and by
the methods secured under the Fowler
patents. The Pittsburg company subse-
quently became the assignee of Clifton b.
Beach, of Cleveland, o.. who had long
before received certain letters patent per-
tanning to car wheels of different type.
and who had, after assignment. filed an
application for patent. professedly
based upon a prior application of his
which for years had been dead
and abandoned application under the law.
This contest was then inaugurated in the
Patent Office by the Pittsburg Steel-cast-
ing Company. When their proofs were
presented, 1t appeared that Beach had
done nothing more toward advancing the
art than to make rough, crude sketches
and to write out his ideas about two years
before patentee Fowler's first conceptions.
The Pittsburg company sought to estab-
lish reduction to practice by showing what
they had commenced TO do before they be-
came the assignees of Beach, and also what
they had actually done in the manufacture
of rolled cast-steel car-wheels after becom-
ing his assignees.
The Commissioner decided in favor of
Fowler, the patentee, thereby affirming the
decision of the board of managers in chief
and the examiner of interferences. The
Commissioner in his decision says: 1T Will
be observed that an interval of nearly four
years elapsed between the abandonment of
the method claimed by Beach's first appll-
cation and the filing of the application in
volved in this interference, and that mean
while Fowler had conceived the invention
in controversy, reduced 1T to practice. en-
tered upon the use OF 1t on an extensive
scale, and applied for and obtained pat
emit. and that nearly year had elapsed aft
er the patent was published TO the world
before Beach fled the application now in
controversy. That an abandoned application
cannot of itself constitute bar 10 a SUBJ
tablished. If the thing described in the
abandoned application is the same thing
that is subsequently patented. il certainly
does establish the conception of the inyen-
ton as of its own date, and If proof de hors
the patent establishes reduction 10 practice
or introduction into public use, and the
time of the reduction TO practice. or the
public use Is IN dispute, then the applica-
tion certainly shows that reduction To
practice might have taken place at any
time subsequent TO its date; but where, as
in this case, there is no proof even of ex-
pertinent. it can have no other effect than
to establish the date of conception of the
invention, which IL discloses. Since II is
true that the rejected and abandoned ap-
plication can have no other effect than TO
establish the fact and date of conception.
it clearly follows, In the absence of all eff
fort during the interveningyear while his
rival was making the invention, patenting
| it and giving 10 to the world, that Beach
cannot be heard to say that the patent To
Fowler is null and void. and that he lBeachl
is the one who is entitled TO patent.
Indeed, there ismuch in the case that tends
to show that if Fowler had not made, and
! perfected, and tested the invention. and