Court Opinion

ID: 8852376
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 17:18:22.154809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:05:32.436244
License: Public Domain

DALLAS, Circuit Judge.
This suit was brought to restrain the alleged infringement by the appellees of the third claim of patent No. 194,476, dated June 29, 1886, granted to James McDonnell for “Bail Ear for Pails.” That claim is as follows:
“(8) The combination, with the pail, of the ears or lugs secured on each side thereof for the attachment of the bail or handle, each having the groove therein, and the spring secured in said groove, and having a projection or shoulder for engaging with the lid of the pail and locking it in position.”
The court below pointed out that the specification describes, and the drawings exhibit, the lug and the spring of the patent, not as separate entities, but as together and unitedly constituting one integral thing; and, construing the claim with reference to *144these other portions of the instrument, interpreted the words, “spring secured in said groove,” as meaning a spring attached to or fastened in the groove. The spring of the appellees is not attached to or fastened in the groove of the bail ear, but passes through it and extends to a point below the lower extremity of the ear, and is there fastened to the body of the pail itself. Consequently, and in accordance with his restrictive understanding of the scope of the claim, the learned judge held that the contrivance of the appellees does not infringe. In our opinion, it would be impossible to hold otherwise, without so expanding the claim as to render it invalid. Similar springs, not fastened to, but brought in contact with, similar lugs, by being passed through grooves therein, were old. This is shown by, at least, the patent (No. 163,598) granted to Robert B. Kepner, dated May 18, 1875. McDonnell merely substituted the existing bail ear lugs for the separate, but, for this purpose, substantially identical lugs which Kepner had employed. This substitution did not amount to invention, and therefore the utmost which, with any show of reason, McDonnell can be said to have originated—and even this, in view of the Bligh patent, No. 27,265, is not unquestionable—consisted in fastening the spring, not to the body of the pail, but to the lug itself, and this the appellees have not done. The decree is affirmed.