Kansas City Hay-Press Co. v. Devol

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
Kansas City Hay-Press Co. v. Devol, 84 F. 463 (8th Cir. 1897)
28 C.C.A. 464; 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 2195
Caldwell, Ctjbiam, Sanbokn, Thayer

Kansas City Hay-Press Co. v. Devol

Opinion of the Court

PEE CTJBIAM.

When the opinion in this case was prepared, the chief point of controversy with respect to patent No. 495,944, issued on April 18, 1893, to James E. Knight, Edward Kelly, and William A. Alderson, as assignees of Winfield S. Livengood et al, seemed to be whether the title to that patent was duly vested in the complainant, the Kansas City Hay-Press Company. To this question our attention was chiefly directed on the argument, and for* that reason full consideration was not given to the further questions whether claim 5 of said patent was valid and had been infringed. We find no occasion to modify our views with respect to the title to the patent, and what was said on that subject will be adhered to. In a petition for a rehearing recently filed by the appellees, the question whether claim 5 of patent No. 495,944 is valid, or was shown to have been infringed by the appellees, is more elaborately discussed, and our attention has been more particularly directed to the state of the art to which claim 5 of patent No. 495,944 relates. We have become satisfied, after considering this claim in relation to the state of the art as disclosed by several prior patents, — to wit, patent No. 446,311, issued to II. L. Whitman on February 10, 1891; patent No. 375,078, issued to Winfield S. Livengood on December 20, 1887; and patent No. 459,-630, issued to John EL Hampton on September 15, 1891, — all of which patents relate to improvements in baling presses, that the claim is not valid, or, if valid, that it must be construed with such limitations as to exempt the appellees from the charge of infringement. We do not deem it necessary to go into this question in detail, and therefore content ourselves with the statement that the Whitman patent, No. 446,311, to which reference has been made, discloses a combination substantially the same as that covered by claim 5 of patent No. 495,944. As this question has received full consideration in connection with the petition for a rehearing, we do not deem it necessary to set the case down for reargument on this point. We have accordingly concluded to modify our former decree by directing that the bill of complaint be dismissed as to patent No. 495,944, at the cost of the complainant company, and that so much of our former judgment as upheld the validity of claim 5 of said patent, and directed an accounting as to the profits realized and damages sustained by the infringement thereof, be expunged. In all other respects the decree as formerly entered will be sustained and remain undisturbed, and the petition for a rehearing will be denied.

Reference

Full Case Name
KANSAS CITY HAY-PRESS CO. v. DEVOL
Status
Published