Patent No. 552,729 to Scribner had for its object the provision of an improved frame for switch jacks, compact and durable switch jacks suitable for use with metallic circuit lines and for controlling the continuity of both limbs of such circuits, and whose contacts should be accessible for testing the insulation and continuity of the circuit wires. The existing state of the art on which he proposes his improvements is rehearsed by the patentee as follows:

"In telephone switch boards of the multiple type it is usual to provide a spring jack or terminal socket upon each section of the multiple switch board for each line. The first spring jack of the series is arranged in the form of a switch which is adapted to disconnect the remainder of the circuit through the switch board. The long-distance connections or other connections requiring the highest insulation and greatest freedom from disturbance are made with this first spring jack of the series by means of the usual loop-plug, in order to free the line from the disturbances arising from crosstalk or induced currents taking place in the cables of the switch board, and the shunting effect of the annunciator which is permanently connected with the switch-board circuit. The necessity also frequently arises of testing to locate defects upon the line, which defects may be either in the switch board or upon the line circuit, and such tests have been provided for by a second switch in the line or switch-board circuit adapted to open the line circuit in order that the circuit through the switch board and that through the line might be separately tested. The spring-jack switches have usually been arranged in groups, of twenty, the different members of the group being mounted upon a common base-plate, the aggregation being denominated a 'strip of spring jacks.'"

The purpose of the invention was to provide a simple and durable strip of spring-jack switches having contact-points not only adapted to make connection with the corresponding portions of ordinary connecting plugs, but which are also accessible for testing by means of a special testing plug provided for the purpose, whereby separate circuits may be closed through the switch-board circuit and through the line circuit simultaneously. The spring jack is also provided with local contact pieces which are connected with the annunciator for the purpose of restoring it and for testing purposes.

The frame specially devised for this patent is shown in part by Fig. 7 here reproduced:

It is made of hard rubber or other insulating material. The recesses for the jacks are narrowed at the rear end for about onethird of their length, so that they may pinch and hold tight the springs of the jacks when pressed into them with their insulating strips between. Forward of this holding place the space is made

wider, to give play to the springs; and forward of this wider space is an opening extending through to the front of the plate to receive the plug when pushed into the jack.

A part of Fig. 1 shows the arrangement of the switch jacks in a part of the frame, and also shows the springs in their relation to each other and their insulations (in black):

Zig 16

This plug is provided with several contact-points, which, with the springs when they come in contact therewith, close the circuit, which is extended thereby through the plug to another line or limb of a line. It (the plug) is a somewhat complicated and ingenious affair, performing functions all of which are not involved in the present suit. We have only to deal with the organization of the frame and the switch jacks and the adaptations of the latter to the plug. By referring to Fig. 16 it is seen that each jack comprises a pair of line-springs, b, b', and their co-operating switch contactanvils, c, c'. The springs, c, c', are connected with the limbs of the circuit through the remainder of the telephone exchange, including the annunciator, and they are adapted to contact with points on the tip of the plug when the latter is pressed in and has separated the main line springs from their contact with the springs, c, c'.

There are 11 claims in this patent, but only the second and fourth are claimed to be infringed. They are as follows:

"(2) The combination with a plate of insulating material having transverse grooves in one face and a plug-opening from the edge of the strip into the

transverse groove, of line springs placed on edge and forced into the groove, the springs being separated by an interposed tongue of insulating material, substantially as described."

"(4) The combination with the plate, a, having the grooves, a', formed in it, of the line springs, b, b', and their contact springs, c, c', separated by interposed tongues of insulating material, forced on edge into the groove, substantially as described."

Nothing in the prior art is shown to us which anticipates these claims. We might properly repeat the observations we have made regarding the conditions existing at the date of the other patents as correctly stating the conditions existing at the date of this invention; that is to say, no such combinations of means are to be found in the prior art. All three of these patents may well stand upon the rule which has several times been affirmed in this court, namely, that while the mere assembling in a new organization of parts of old structures to perform the same function in their new place that they did in the old is not invention, yet where they are so taken and are organized in a new and useful manner, so as to produce a more beneficial result, there may be invention; and when the combination displays the exercise of intuitive skill and genius. beyond that possessed and exercised by those well skilled in the practice of their art, and the discovery is of something new and useful, invention should be recognized. As we have already indicated, we think that each of these patents shows a distinct advance in the progress of the art with which it is concerned. And the number of patents relating to this subject which had been taken out is strong evidence that the results which had already been reached had already exhausted the common skill and learning of the craft.

With respect to the matter of infringement, the defendants North and Steele are not shown to have been individually guilty of any infringing act. There is therefore no excuse for joining them as parties, unless it be that they were officers of the offending corporation, and this is no excuse. It may be, however, that the complainant mistakenly supposed the officers were active participants in the infringement, and has been disappointed in its proofs. However this may be, the bill was properly dismissed as to them, and so far the decree of the Circuit Court will be affirmed, with costs of both courts to those defendants.

As to the corporation, the charge of infringement is clearly proven. The claim that it built upon old structures, known to the public before the inventions of the patents in suit, is groundless. Its manufacture resembles the older art only as the complainant's does. The only difference between the manufacture of the defendant and that of the complainant's patents which has been pointed out in the thorough and elaborate argument of counsel for defendants, or that we have been able to discover, that deserves to be mentioned, is this, which has reference to that element of the combinations of the last patent termed the "frame" or "plate," which in that patent is described as made of hard rubber or other insulating material. The defendant's frame or plate has a floor made of alu

minum, upon which are mounted the parts which support the switch jacks and bind them at the rear, which, as well as all the other parts of the frame except the floor, are made of hard rubber; and it comes to this that all the parts of the defendant's frame whereof the kind of material is of any consequence is the same as the complainant's. The frame is in all substantial respects the equivalent of the Scribner frame.

The decree of the Circuit Court must be affirmed, with costs as to the defendants North and Steele, and reversed as to the defendant North Electric Company, with costs to complainant in the Circuit Court and in this court, and the cause remanded, with directions to enter a decree for the complainant against that defendant and for further proceedings therein. The decree will not include an order for an injunction in respect to any of the complainant's patents which have expired at the time of entering such decree.

BUCHANAN et al. v. PERKINS ELECTRIC SWITCH MFG. CO.
(Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. February 7, 1905.)

No. 16.

PATENTS-VALIDITY AND INFRINGEMENT INCANDESCENT LAMP SOCKETS. The Perkins patent, No. 626,927, for an incandescent lamp socket, was not anticipated, and is not for a mere aggregation of parts, but covers a true combination of old elements into a new and complete unitary structure in such a way as to produce a new and highly beneficial result, and to show invention. Claims 3, 4, and 9 also held infringed.

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

For opinion below, see 129 Fed. 134.

Marcellus Bailey, for appellants.

Hubert Howson, for appellee.

Before DALLAS and GRAY, Circuit Judges, and BRADFORD, District Judge.

GRAY, Circuit Judge. This is an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 129 Fed. 134. The appellee brought suit by a bill in equity against the appellants, for infringement of claims 3, 4 and 9 of letters patent No. 626,927, granted June 13, 1899, to the appellee, as assignee of Charles G. Perkins, for improvements in incandescent lamp sockets. The decree of the court below sustained claims 3, 4 and 9 of the patent in suit, and found the defendants to have infringed the same. The claims involved are as follows:

"(3) In combination in a lamp-socket, a cap, a shell, two blocks of insulating material with recesses arranged to form two insulating-chambers, a plate with a binding-screw located in one of the chambers and having its ends secured to the respective blocks, a plate with a binding-screw located in the other of the chambers and having its ends secured to the respective blocks, and

grooves in the edges of the upper block for the passage of the circuit-wires of the respective binding-screws, substantially as specified.

"(4) In combination in a lamp-socket, a shell, two blocks of insulating material with recesses arranged to form insulated chambers, a plate with a binding-screw located in one of the chambers, a plate with a binding-screw located in the other of the chambers, and a switch-block located in one of the chambers and adapted to make contact with the end of the plate in the same chamber, substantially as specified.

“(9) In combination in a lamp-socket, a cap, a shell, two blocks of insulating material located within the shell, insulated chambers formed by recesses in the insulation, and plates bearing outwardly-extending binding-screws located in the recesses and having their ends secured by screws to the respective insulating-blocks, substantially as specified."

The defenses set up were nonpatentability, for lack of invention, and noninfringement. The first, viz., nonpatentability, was the most seriously urged, and was and is the controlling issue in this case. The patentee says, in regard to the subject matter of his patent:

"This invention relates to a receptacle for incandescent lamps, having a switch mechanism enclosed in a chamber that is insulated from the shell and from the chamber containing the parts forming the other side of the circuit through the socket."

A trouble incident to all lamp sockets, and present to a greater or less extent in all the numerous devices prior to that of the patent in suit, arose from the juxtaposition of the poles or terminals of the circuit, owing to the necessarily confined space in which they were inclosed. The danger of short circuits, from contacts of the raveled ends of the wires inserted in the posts, and from arcing, was one that, according to the evidence, had only been imperfectly prevented in the sockets of incandescent lamps. That this danger was entirely eliminated or minimized by the device of the patent in suit, is not denied. The appellant, however, cites the prior art, not so much to prove anticipation of the device of the patent in suit, as to show that the state of the art was such, that the combination set forth in the claims was a mere step in the direction of increased efficiency of such lamp sockets as would readily suggest itself to one skilled in the art, and did not involve patentable invention.

Of the numerous patents and devices for incandescent lamp sockets prior to the patent in suit, only four have been cited by the defendant below, to illustrate the state of the art into which the lamp socket of the complainant below was introduced. These are the "Snow" patent, No. 554,896, dated February 18, 1896, the "Wirt" patent, No. 560,667, dated May 26, 1896, the "Hubbell" patent, No. 565,541, dated August 11, 1896, and the "Pass & Seymour" patent, No. 568,919, dated October 6, 1896. In each of these patents, except the "Pass & Seymour," the insulating discs of porcelain, in which the switch mechanism is placed and into which are brought the terminals or poles of the circuit, to be connected. through the high resisting lamp filament, are covered by a thin metal case. In the "Snow" and "Hubbell" patents, it is only necessary to refer to the latter as more cicarly demonstrating the advance of the art in the direction of the device of the patent in suit.