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venience in selling, and that they were unstrung before they were used. We sustained the Circuit Court in holding that such articles were not within par. 445, Act Oct. 1, 1890, c. 1244, § 1, Schedule N, 26 Stat. 600, as "glass beads unthreaded or unstrung."

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No new facts and no new arguments are presented which would require a different decision in this cause. Reference is made to a decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals in the Seventh Circuit (U. S. v. Buettener, 133 Fed. 163, 66 C. C. A. 289), where the facts were apparently the same but the conclusion reached different from that in the Steiner Case; and it is suggested that, in order to secure an harmonious interpretation of the tariff act, we should reverse our former decision, and follow the court in the Seventh Circuit. Inasmuch, however, as the decision of this court was first in order of time, that argument might more properly have been addressed to the Seventh Circuit. Since we are not persuaded by the later decision that we were in error in our first conclusion, the better course would seem to be to adhere to our former ruling, leaving it to the Supreme Court to secure uniformity by determining which of the conflicting constructions of the paragraph is the correct one.

The authorities which are found in the exhaustive brief of counsel for the importers are not controlling, because they deal with causes where a Circuit Court in one circuit has reversed its former decision to conform to a later decision of a Circuit Court of Appeals in another circuit. Here the first decision was by a court of equal jurisdiction. The decision of Circuit Court is affirmed.

WILSON v. UNITED STATES.

(Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit. February 2, 1906.)

No. 112.

CUSTOMS DUTIES-CLASSIFICATION-COTTON TABLE DAMASK-ARTICLES IN THE PIECE-COTTON CLOTH.

Articles of cotton table damask, woven in the piece, are included within the expression "cotton table damask" in paragraph 321, Tariff Act July 24. 1897, c. 11, § 1, Schedule I, 30 Stat. 179 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1661], and are dutiable under that paragraph rather than under the provisions of Schedule I for "cotton cloth" because it is more specific than such provisions.

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

This cause comes here upon appeal from a decision of the Circuit Court, Southern District of New York, which affirmed a decision of the Board of General Appraisers sustaining the classification by the collector of the port of New York of certain goods for tariff duty.

For decision below, see 138 Fed. 1007, affirming a decision of the Board of United States General Appraisers, which, on the authority of previous decisions of the Board (G. A. 5,527, T. D. 24,880, and G. A. 5,612 T. D. 25,107), had overruled protests of Thomas Wilson & Co. against the assessment of duty by the collector of customs at the port of New York. The goods in controversy consisted of articles of cotton table damask in the piece, which had been

classified as manufactures of cotton, under Tariff Act July 24, 1897, c. 11, § 1, Schedule I, par. 322, 30 Stat. 179 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1661], and were claimed by the importers to be dutiable under the provisions of said schedule for "cotton cloth." The Board was of opinion that the goods should have been classed as "cotton table damask," under paragraph 321, 30 Stat. 179 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1661], and overruled the importers' protests because this contention was not made therein.

Curie, Smith & Maxwell (W. Wickham Smith, of counsel), for the importers.

Henry A. Wise, Asst. U. S. Atty.

Before LACOMBE, TOWNSEND, and COXE, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM. The Board returns that the "merchandise consists of napkins or cloths woven in the piece, composed of cotton table damask." The relevant paragraph (Tariff Act July 24, 1897, c. 11, § 1, Schedule I, 30 Stat. 179 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 1661]), is "(321). Cotton table damask, forty per centum." The record is wholly barren of any testimony as to trade meaning of these words, and the common and popular meaning is certainly broad enough to cover the merchandise in question. Whether, as suggested on the argument, it also includes individual napkins and tablecloths cut off from the piece is a question not presented by this record, since the importer does not seek to review the Board's classification of the individual articles under the countable cotton clauses; therefore, we express no opinion thereon. Certainly, the phrase "cotton table damask" is more specific than the various countable cotton provisions. Decision affirmed.

146 F.-5

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. v. GARRETT COAL CO.

(Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. June 11, 1906.)

No. 12.

PATENTS-INFRINGEMENT-ELECTRIC CONTROLLERS.

The Knight & Potter patents, Nos. 587,441 and 587,442, the first for an apparatus and the second for a method for regulating the power and speed of mechanism driven by two electric motors, such as trolley cars, were not anticipated, and cover broadly the changing of the connection between the two motors from series to multiple and the reverse, the former by shunting one while protecting the other by a resistance, breaking the circuit connection of the shunted motor, and finally reconnecting the two in multiple with the resistance cut out; and in such process of change the time of cutting out the resistance, or whether all at once or gradually, are nonessential to the invention. As so constructed, held infringed.

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

For opinion below, see 141 Fed. 994.

L. F. H. Betts and Charles Neave, for appellant.

Glenn S. Noble, for appellee.

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

GRAY, Circuit Judge. This cause comes before the court on an appeal from a final decree of the Circuit Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, dismissing the bill of complaint therein.

The bill of complaint in the court below alleged that the complainantappellant was a corporation existing under the laws of the state of New York, and, claiming as assignee the rights secured by letters patent No. 587,441 and No. 587,442, issued to William B. Potter and W. H. Knight, the first for an apparatus and the second for a method for the control of electric motors, charged that the defendant-appellee, a corporation of the state of Pennsylvania, had infringed the same, and prayed for an injunction and the usual accounting. The usual defenses of lack of invention, anticipation and noninfringement, were set up in the answer. After proofs and a hearing, the court below filed an opinion, ordering the bill of complaint to be dismissed, on the ground that the defendant had not infringed any of the claims of the two patents in suit. The claims alleged to be infringed were claims 1 and 2 of patent No. 587,441 and claims 3, 4 and 9 of patent No. 587,442.

The patents in suit are for certain new and useful improvements in regulating apparatus for electrically driven mechanism, and in methods of regulating electrically driven mechanism, respectively. The two patents are so related, that they may be considered together, as the method of the second patent, without being merely the function of the mechanism described in the apparatus patent, is necessarily disclosed therein. The gist of the invention is set forth in the apparatus patent, No. 587,441, which exhibits a mechanism by which the broad claims of the method patent, No. 587,442, can be carried out. The inventions of the patent in suit relate to motors arranged in "series" and

in "parallel," for electrically driven vehicles, notably trolley cars, and to means and methods of controlling the same. As the methods described in the second patent, No. 587,442, is fundamental to both patents, we quote the description thereof from its specifications:

"Our invention relates to the method of regulating the power and speed of mechanism driven by two electric motors by placing them in series for low speed and in multiple for a higher speed. Heretofore this method, although understood to be one capable of affording greater economy than the usual method of regulating by means of artificial resistance, has not come into general use by reason principally of the difficulty encountered in making the change of motor connections from series to multiple. This difficulty has been due not only to the destructive arc produced on the rupture of such current-bearing circuits as it might be necessary to break in making the change in circuit connections, but also to the wide variation in motor resistance both ohmic and inductive-between the series and the multiple arrangements, which resistance variation produced correspondingly violent speed variation in the driven mechanism. Our invention is designed to overcome these objections to this desirable method of regulation and has demonstrated its capacity for accomplishing this result in a thoroughly practicable manner. It consists in a method of control.ing the speed and power of mechanism driven by two electric motors by gradually or progressively effecting the change of motors from series to multiple by first shunting one of them, so as to leave in circuit the other one only, which continues in an active condition and is connected directly to the main circuit, as in the multiple arrangement, but is protected against the effect of the full voltage of the main circuit by an auxiliary or supplementary resistance, such as an artificial resistance of wire or any other suitable material, which is inserted in the circuit at the time of the aforesaid shunting and is maintained in circuit a sufficient length of time to bring the unshunted motor to its multiple rate of speed under the increased voltage at its terminals. The other notor, after being shunted, is disconnected from the circuit, so that for a brief period no current passes through it. It is then connected in multiple with its mate and the auxiliary resistance withdrawn. Our invention includes also the contrary method of changing from multiple to series by performing the aforesaid series of acts in a reverse order. We have, moreover, designed certain mechanism that may be conveniently used in practicing the aforesaid method, and we have disclosed the same herein as an assistance to the ready understanding in all its details of our novel method; but we make no claim herein to such mechanism, as it is embraced by another application for patent bearing serial No. 433,906, filed May 21, 1892."

In the view we take of the questions in controversy, we need only give attention to the diagrammatic explanation of the method of the patent, without concerning ourselves with the specifications that relate to a mechanism for putting the method in practice.

The advantages to result in speed regulation, from combining the series and parallel systems of motors, were recognized in the prior art, but it is said in the specification above quoted, that the seriesparallel system "had not come into general use by reason principally of the difficulty encountered in making the change of motor connections from series to multiple." A sudden breaking of the circuit, when the motors are in series, the current flowing through both without artificial resistance, would result in a disastrous sparking. The same result in less degree would occur when the speed was reduced by artificial resistance. Besides the sparking, the necessity of shutting off the current, and thus leaving the car with the slow speed of its mere momentum, in order to pass from series to multiple, and of encountering

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the shock of the immediate acceleration of speed thus produced, was a difficulty to be overcome. This, it is claimed, was successfully accomplished by the method and apparatus of the patents in suit. The method is a gradual, or step by step, progress from the series to the parallel supply of the electric current to the motors, by which the current may be safely broken as to one motor in series, the same be at once changed to parallel relation to the other, and the multiple rate of speed attained, without shock and without sparking, there being, during the process, no shunting off of the current or reduction of speed. This method is diagrammatically set forth in the patent in suit, No. 587,442, as follows:

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