Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-06-12
LAWYERS HOLD THAT PATENTS
NEED NOT BE INFRlNGED
SINCE AMENDMENTS.
PURPOSE OF THE COUNCIL
HAS BEEN ACCOMPLISHED
Times Republican Employs Firm
of Lawyers To Pass Upon Effect of
Amendment to Paving Specifications
and They Uphold Opinion of the
County Attorney.

In order that the Times Republican
might be able TO give the property
owners and tax payers of this city the
benefit of a carefully prepared legal
opinion upon the effect of the amend
ment which the city council made to
its paving specifications the law firm
of Carney & Carney has been en-
ployed to pass upon the question
as to whether contractors generally
could lay paving under the amended
specifications without infringing upon
the patents held by Messrs. Blome and
Sinek. These lawyers hold, in effect,
that the amended specifications are
wide enough to permit paving without
infringement, and in this they concur
in the opinion given to the council by
City Attorney Northup.
Messrs. Carney & Carney say:
I'm answer TO your inquiry as to
pavement matter. we give the follow
ing opinion:
The question upon which an opin-
ion is desired, as we understand it, is
whether or not the specifications
adopted by the council of the city of
Marshalltown on June 9. 1909, for paw
ing the streets of said city will allow
competitive bidding upon the basis of
said specifications, without danger of
suit for damages Of the contract is
obtained) by the patentees for what is
generally known as the granitoid con-
crete pavement. The patents which
have been submitted TO US for exam
nation and comparison covering the
pavement referred to, are two Nos.
S561O5 and 9195S0. The questions arts
ing under these patents seem to be as
follows;
First-Do these patents cover and
protect in the patentee the right To
combine several ingredients such as
Portland cement, sand and stone?
1t is our opinion that such a COM
bination is not patentable, for the rea-
son that it fails TO produce new, no.
vel and formerly unknown resulting
combination, and foundations of con-
crete have long been in use for side
walks, buildings and pavements.
Second-The patentees attempt to
patent a pavement, one feature of
which shall be freedom from liability
of small gravel working loose. wear
ing down and smoothing off the top
surface of the pavement. They at
tempt to accomplish this by screening
out the small pebbles and grains of
sand. The quality of the pavement
then would depend solely on the size
of the gravel. The smallest limit is
placed at Is inch in diameter in the
patent No S56105. In the later patent,
No 919530 it is placed at Il inch. In
the speciicati tons adopted by the city
of MarshalltoWn it is placed at 1-16
inch in size. 1t would appear that this
variance in size would be a material
variance from the patented article and
would not be an infringement in that
respect.
Third-The patentees attempt to
obtain a patent with a device of ex-
pansion joints, which are filed with
some suitable expanding material tc
Withstand the variation in tempera-
ture. Whether or not this device OF
expansion joints is patentable is seri-
ously questionable. 1t would seem that
there is nothing new or novel or par
ticularly ingenious in this device and
We believe that such devices have long
been In use, as Is We'll known in cases
of railway rails with their intervening
spaces left for expansion.
Fourth-Coming to the question OF
the combination of cement. sand and
stone, a comparison is made between
last patent No. 91s530 and the specia-
cations of the city council, because the
second patent appears to cover all the
points covered by the first patent ir
this respect. The table Of comparison
is as follows: