1927-04-30 -- Akro V. Peltier

[Steph]

Here's a little bit of color connected with the lawsuit Akro filed against Pelter.

[kbobam]

I'm hooked!

Is there a page 2? ( :

[lstmmrbls]

ended in 1929 with a reversal and order to dismiss . https://casetext.com/case/peltier-glass-co-v-akro-agate-co

[kbobam]

That's some wild stuff.

Although "...the court alone could decide a suit involving a patent." might

be open to debate, it certainly looks like they were pretty thorough here!

And given the date, I'm going to have to guess that all parties involved

wound up with more important things to worry about not too long after.

[Steph]

Summary:

The Akro technology was stolen from M.F. Christensen by Horace Hill in 1912.

Hill had the audacity to try to patent the stolen machinery. His application was turned back once for not being sufficiently different from MFC's. He tweaked it and tried again and was finally granted a patent but not a very broad patent. He only got credit for a small change. Almost all the elements of the mechanical creation of spheres, both glass and otherwise, were already well-established.

So in 1927, the court ultimately said that Peltier's machine did not fall into the narrow zone which Hill's patent covered. Peltier was using M.F. Christensen technology possibly with Peltier's own tweaks, not the tweaks introduced by Hill.

[BobBlock]

Interesting read. What I don't understand is, if the patent office originally said that Hill could not claim that his helical groove system was substantially different than MFC's single channel machine, and the court affirmed the Patent Office position that Hill's helical groove system was old technology ("In machines for making spherical bodies, the helically grooved rolls appear in the Kempster patent of 1888, the Williams patent of 1903, and in Bornemann of 1901. So far as the teaching of those machines in the art of making spherical bodies is concerned, it is not considered material that they were used for making metal balls, whereas the Christensen and Hill, although broad enough to be used for other purposes, were used only for making marbles.") and not patentable, then how was MFC's system sufficiently different from the old technology so that he was granted a patent?

[Chad G.]

On 9/28/2014 at 11:26 AM, Steph said:

Here's a little bit of color connected with the lawsuit Akro filed against Pelter.

Glad you put this post back into circulation Steph, an important part of marble history/

[Ric]

21 hours ago, Chad G. said:

Glad you put this post back into circulation Steph, an important part of marble history/

Well worth reviving, for sure!