The Federal Reporter (Annotated), Volume 171: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and Circuit and District Courts of the United States. September-October, 1909. Page: 87
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ELECTRIC CONTROLLER & S. CO. V. WESTINGHOUSE E. & MFG. CO. 87
kinds of electrical devices. The Lange & Lamme controller is conven-
ient in construction, being easily assembled and permitting ready re-
placement of parts if required, and is much lighter and is less expen-
sive than the wooden and other forms of drum construction formerly
used.
The history we have given of the development of the art of electric
railway drum construction, the unsuccessful experiments made during
several years before the Lange & Lamme invention to remedy the
serious defects and difficulties connected with the then existing con-
struction on the part of those not only skilled in the electric art, but
under the sharp spur of commercial competition, the success and
usefulness of the device in question and its speedy general adoption,
furnish persuasive evidence that the discovery of the Lange & Lamme
idea involved actual invention, and was not the result merely of
mechanical skill Among the many cases which have recognized and
applied the principle involved in the proposition just stated, the fol-
lowing may be cited: Keystone Mfg. Co. v. Adams, 151 U. S. 139.
143, 14 Sup. Ct. 295, 38 L. Ed. 103; Potts v. Creager, 155 U. S. 597,
608, 15 Sup. Ct. 194, 39 L. Ed. 275; Hobbs v. Beach, 180 U S. 383,
392, 21 Sup. Ct. 409, 45 L. Ed. 586; Star Brass Works v. General Elec
Co., 111 Fed. 398, 49 C. C. A. 409: Kalamazoo Ry. Supply Co. v. Duff
.Mfg. Co., 113 Fed. 264, 51 C. C. A. 221; Dowagiac Mfg. Co. v.
Superior Drill Co., 115 Fed. 886, 53 C. C. A. 36.
It is clear that the Lange & Lamme device involved patentable in-
vention, unless it shall be found to have been anticipated by one or
more of the patented devices presented by defendant.
The patent first urged as anticipatory of the patent in suit is United
States patent No. 503,279 to Davis, on a "controlling switch for elec-
trically propelled vehicles." The application for this patent was filed
January 7, 1893. The patent is dated August 15, 1893. The Lange &
Lamme patent in suit was applied for February 25, 1893. The date
of the filing of the Davis application (as well, in fact, as the date of the
patent) thus antedate the corresponding dates of the Lange & Lamme
patent. If, therefore, the two applications disclose substantially the
same subject-matter, in the absence of any other evidence of the date
of invention, the date of the first application would prima facie be taken
as the date of the first invention. Drewsen v. Hartje Paper Mfg. Co..
131 Fed. 734, 739, 65 C. C. A. 548. The prominent element of Davis'
invention and patent is the reversing switch. Neither of the patent
claims embraces conducting sleeves (whether insulated or not) carried
by the axle, or curved conducting strips carried by the sleeves. The
skeletonized metal sleeve construction is thus entirely lacking, so far
as the patent claims are concerned. Nor is such construction shown
by the specifications, except as Fig. 4, which is characterized as "a ver-
tical section" of "my controlling switch," discloses what appears to be
the skeletonized metal sleeve construction of the Lange & Lamme
patent. The only other reference to Fig. 4 which can be thought at all
relevant to the claimed anticipation is this: Speaking of the method
of manipulating two electric motors, the inventor says:
"These circuits have been hitherto employed in connection with a control-
ling cylinder similar to that shown in part in Fig. 4, and with a reversing
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The Federal Reporter (Annotated), Volume 171: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and Circuit and District Courts of the United States. September-October, 1909., legislative document, 1909; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38217/m1/99/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.