Tracy v. Torrey
U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Northern New York
In equity. This was an application for a provisional injunction to restrain the infringement of a patent. The plaintiff [Samuel R. Tracy] was grantee of the exclusive right for Yates county. N. Y., under letters patent [No. 4,459], granted to Nathan Ide, of Shelby, Orleans county, N. Y., on the 18th of April. 1846, for an “improvement in cultivators.”
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In equity. This was an application for a provisional injunction to restrain the infringement of a patent. The plaintiff [Samuel R. Tracy] was grantee of the exclusive right for Yates county. N. Y., under letters patent [No. 4,459], granted to Nathan Ide, of Shelby, Orleans county, N. Y., on the 18th of April. 1846, for an “improvement in cultivators.” In his specification, the patentee described his cultivator as having but two wheels, and set forth the nature of his invention as follows: “The nature of my invention consists in the arrangement of the cultivator teeth in two rows, one back and…
1Opinion of the Court
THE COURT
held that the defendants’ cultivator was an infringement of Ide’s; that the defendants were using the principle and substance of Ide’s invention, merely carrying it out further in practice than he had done when he took out his patent; and that the defendants’ form of construction was not in law even an improvement on Ide’s, because it was only the result of practical experience in the use of Ide’s, and involved no invention beyond what was embodied in Ide’s and was clearly set forth in his specification.
The defendants’ counsel asked that the injunction be stayed on the defendants’…
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