UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

CAWOOD PATENT, 94 U. S. 695 (1876)

94 U. S. 695

U.S. Supreme Court

Cawood Patent, 94 U.S. 695 (1876)

Cawood Patent

94 U.S. 695

Syllabus

1. This Court, in affirming the validity of the letters patent No. 15,687, granted to Joseph D. Cawood Sept. 9, 1856, for

"an improvement in the common anvil or swedge block for the purpose of welding up and reforming the ends of railroad rails when they have been exfoliated, or become shattered from unequal wear occasioned by the inequalities of the road,"

&c., which were before it in Turrill v. Michigan Southern Railroad Co., 1 Wall. 491, holds, in addition to what was declared in that case, that they embrace a bottom support for the rail on the anvil, and that they are infringed by the machines known as the "Illinois Central," the "Etheridge," and the "Whitcomb," but not by those known as the "Bayonet vise," the "Michigan Southern," and the "Beebe and Smith."

2. Where an account for the infringement of letters patent is prayed for and decreed, the record filed here should set it forth. This Court should not be called upon to perform the duties of a master.

3. Considering the number of feet of rails mended by the respondents in the use of the machines covered by said letters patent, and of those which infringe them, the gain in mending, compared with the cost of mending on the common anvil, and the saving in fuel and labor, the damages decreed by the court below are not excessive.

4. In settling an account between a patentee and an infringes of his letters patent, the question is not what profits the latter made in his business, or from his manner of conducting it, but what advantage he derived from his use of the patented invention. clubjuris

Page 94 U. S. 696

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.


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