Edwards v. Commissioner of Internal Revenue‪.‬

This is a suit for alleged infringement of combination patent No. 2,007,607 relating to improvements in scissors type pressing machines commonly used industrially in laundries for ironing purposes and in dry cleaning establishments for pressing purposes. George W. Johnson was the inventor. Plaintiff owns the patent by assignment from him. Claims 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8 are in issue. They are set forth in the margin. The defenses are invalidity and non-infringement. The court found that the patent should be limited to a spiral or helical spring snap-acting means for urging the two handles from intermediate to inoperative position; that as thus limited the claims were valid; that the first type of machines manufactured and sold by defendant embodied such spring means and infringed; but that the type thereafter manufactured and sold failed to employ any such member and therefore did not infringe. The uncontroverted evidence disclosed that defendant manufactured a third type, but no findings were made in respect of it. Defendant was enjoined from the further manufacture and sale of the first type of machines or any other type containing a spiral or helical spring member tending to move the manuals from intermediate to inoperative position. Both parties appealed from the respective parts of the decree deemed to be adverse.