Thomson-Houston Electric Co. v. Western Electric Co.
Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
Appeal from tlie Circuit Court of tlie United States for the Northern District of Illinois. This suit was brought by the appellant, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, against the appellees, tlie Western Electric Company and Enos M. Burton, for infringement of letters pa lent No. 288," 115, issued March 1, 1SS1, to Elihu Thomson and Edwin J. Houston, for a current regulator for dynamo-electric machines.
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Appeal from tlie Circuit Court of tlie United States for the Northern District of Illinois. This suit was brought by the appellant, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company, against the appellees, tlie Western Electric Company and Enos M. Burton, for infringement of letters pa lent No. 288," 115, issued March 1, 1SS1, to Elihu Thomson and Edwin J. Houston, for a current regulator for dynamo-electric machines. Proof .was made of a number of patents both in the prior and later art, but the controversy, as waged here and in the circuit court (65 Fed. 615). turns mainly upon a comparison of the…
1Opinion of the CourtWoods, Circuit Judge
We are unable to find in the current regulator of the patent in suit anything more than an adaptation of the brush adjuster of the earlier patent. The two are essentially the same in mechanism, adjustment, motive power, and law of operation; and, in so far as the purposes intended or accomplished are not the same, they are distinctly analogous. The second patent purports to be only an improvement upon the first, “the method” of which is declared to be “adaptable to the present case of current regulation.” As first drawn, the specification declared the correspondence of Fig. 2 of the present…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Western Electric Co. v. Sperry Electric Co.Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · 1893
3Cited by4 opinions
- Thomson-Houston Electric Co. v. Western Electric Co.Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · 1896
- General Electric Co. v. Sundh Electric Co.Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit · 1918
- Western Electric Co. v. Standard Electric Co.Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · 1898
- Justi v. ClarkCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · 1901