Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-07-23

make car wheels under the idea OF Mr..
Beach, of Cleveland. The Fowler patent is
younger, but proceeded to completion,
while the Beach idea wasn't pushed until
the Fowler success was demonstrated.
WASHINGTON. July 22.-The Commits
sioner of Patents has decided, on final ap-
peal, q well-known office controversy in
volving the exclusive right under letters
patent in and to rolled cast-steel car wheels,
as well as to the manufacture thereof. The
actual parties to the controversy are the
Fowler Cast-Steel Car Wheel Company, of
Chicago, and the Pittsburg Steel Casting
Company, of Pittsburg, Pa. The proofs
showed that long time after the Fowler
steel car wheels had been publicly produced
in Pittsburg by means of a 100-ton machine,
which had been built in that city under Mr..
Fowler's direction, for his company, the
Pittsburg Steel Casting Company COM
menced producing car wheels of substaL-
tally similar character and by the methods
secured under the Fowler patents.
The Pittsburg Company soon became the
assignee of Clifton B. Beach, of Cleveland,
who had long before received certain letters
patent pertaining to car wheels of differ
ent type, and who had after assignment filed
an application for a patent, professedly
based upon prior application of his, which
for years had been a dead and abandoned
application under the law. Then this
CONTEST WAS INAUGURATED
in the patent Office BY the Pittsburg Steel
Casting Company. When their proofs
were presented, it 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 establish
reduction to practice by showing what they
had commenced to do, before they became
the assignees of Beach, and also what they
had actually done in the manufacture of
rolled cast steel car wheels, after becoming
his ass<G G1ees. The commissioner decided
in favor o Fowler, the patentee, thereby af-
6rming the -ision of the board of examin-
ers-in-chief and the examiner cf interfer-
ences. The commissioner in his decision
says:
''It will be observed that an interval of
nearly four years elapsed between the
abandonment of the method claims of
Beach's first application, and the filing of
the application involved in this interference,
and that meanwhile Fowler had conceived
the invention in controversy, reduced it to
practice, entered upon the use of it on an
extensive scale and applied for and obtained
patent, and that nearly year had elapsed
after the patent was published to the world,
before Beach FLED the application now in
controversy. That
AN ABANDONED APPLICATION
cannot of itself constitute bar to a subse-
quently granted patent is abundantly es-
tablished. If the thing described in the
abandoned application is the same thing
that is subsequently patented it certainly
does establish the conception of the inven-
ton. and if proof establishes reduction to
practice or introduction into public use,
and the time of the reduction to practice or
the public use is in dispute, then the appli-
cation certainly shows that reduction to
practice might have taken place at any time
subsequent 10 this date; but when, as in this
case, there is no proof even of experiment.
lish the date of conception of the
invention which it discloses Since it 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 efforts
during the intervening years, while his
rival was making the invention, patenting
it and giving it to the world, Beach cannot
be heard to say that the patent to Fowler is
null and void and that he (Beach) is the
one who is entitled to a patent. Indeed
there is much In the case that tends to show
that if Fowler had not made and perfected
and tested the invention and demonstrated
its value, Beach would never have at
tempted to revive his old claims and seek
to secure a patent"