City Of Elizabeth v. Pavement Company

97 U.S. 126 (1877)

Facts

In 1848, P created a new type of wooden pavement that was to be used on roadways. The nature and object of the invention consists in providing a process or mode of constructing wooden block pavements upon a foundation along a street or roadway with facility, cheapness, and accuracy, and also in the creation and construction of such a wooden pavement as shall be comparatively permanent and durable, by so uniting and combining all its parts, both superstructure and foundation, as to provide against the slipping of the horses' feet, against noise, against unequal wear, and against rot and consequent sinking away from below. P tested his invention by paving part of a public road in Boston in 1854. P patented the process on August 8, 1854. P sued Ds claiming that Ds constructed a road in substantial conformity with the process patented, and prays an account of profits, and an injunction. Ds admitted that they had constructed, and were still constructing, wooden pavements in City, but alleging that they were constructed in accordance with a patent granted to John W. Brocklebank and Charles Trainer, dated Jan. 12, 1869, and denied that it infringed upon the complainant. Ds also denied that there was any novelty in the alleged invention and specified a number of English and other patents which exhibited, as they claimed, every substantial and material part thereof which was claimed as new. They averred that the alleged invention was in public use, with P's consent and allowance, for six years before he applied for a patent. P got the verdict and Ds appealed.