Hamilton v. Rollins

| U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Minnesota | Sep 15, 1877

NELSON, District Judge.

These suits are brought by the complainant, an assignee of the patentee, to recover damages for infringements of the patent No. 51,310, granted to Palmer Hamilton, December 5th, 1865, for “improvement in saw-mills.”

The defences set up in all the cases are: (1) Want of novelty.

This patent was sustained in the case of Ives v. Hamilton, 92 U.S. 426" court="SCOTUS" date_filed="1876-01-24" href="https://app.midpage.ai/document/ives-v-hamilton-89290?utm_source=webapp" opinion_id="89290">92 U. S. 426. It is there described as “an improvement in saw-mills, and consists of the combination of the saw with a pair of curved guides at the upper end of the saw, and a lever, connecting rod or pitman, straight guides, pivoted cross-head, and slides or blocks and crank-pin, or their equivalents, at the opposite end, * * * {jiving to the saw, in its downward movement, a rocking or rolling motion, by means of the cross-head working in the curved guides at the upper end of the saw, the lower end of which is attached to a cross-head working in straight guides, and pivoted to the pitman below the saw with the crank-pin.”

The defendants rely upon the Straub parent, No. 7943, issued in 1851, to sustain this defence. In the case above cited, this patent was not spread on the record, and the supreme court did not consider it I have examined the drawing of the invention and claim of the patentee, and find it is not the combination used in the Hamilton patent. Straub obtains a similar result (a vibratory motion of the saw), but the means devised for producing the motion, and not the result, is the claim made by Hamilton, and for which he was granted a patent. In Straub’s patent, the saw is fixed at the upper end between two blocks, and at an angle to the perpendicular of forty-five degrees, or thereabouts, are placed grooved guides in which the blocks with saw attached slide. These guides are fastened to and supported by the saw frame, which consists of two upright standards with a cross-bar at the top running from each to the guides. The opposite end of the saw is fastened directly to a short rod connected to the extremity of a fly-wheel, so that, passing upwards and downwards by the rotary motion of the wheel, the saw retreats from and advances towards the log, describing in its movement nearly a circle. Between the guides, and running in the same direction, is fitted to the upper end of the saw a rod with spiral spring coiled around it, which strains the saw in descending by opposing its descent, and by its tension draws up the sliding blocks and upper end of the saw, and thus prevents it from bending during its upward and downward movement.

[For other cases involving this patent, see note to Hamilton v. Ives. Case No. 5,982.]

Hamilton obtains a vibratory motion to the saw by the cross-head to which the saw at the upper end is attached sliding in curved guides with the concave part towards the log, and the opposite end of the saw oscillating slightly by being attached to the pit-man rod above the cross-head.

The design of the inventors of both combinations is to secure a motion -similar to that given a whip-saw by men in a saw-pit, but the means employed by each are different. The curved guides above and the straight guides and lever pitman below, all of which comprise the Hamilton mechanical combination, are not found in the Straub patent.

Second defence. No right of action to recover for infringements occurring before the assignment. This defence is not intended to apply to all the cases, but, so far as it does, cannot be sustained.

Ordinarily, a cause of action in tort is not assignable. This rule, however, has reference to strictly personal torts, but rights of action for damages, and claims growing out of and adhering to property, will pass by assignment. The deed of assignment introduced is sufficient to convey the rights vested in the original patentee, and all his interest in infringements, to the complainant. She can, therefore, maintain these suits, and a decree will be entered accordingly for a perpetual injunction and an account, with costs. Decree accordingly.