General Electric Co v. Minneapolis-Honeywell Regulator Co‪.‬

The plaintiff is the owner of United States Patent No. 1,583,496 which was granted May 4, 1926, on the application of William L. Shafter filed Feb. 23, 1924. The suit is the usual one in equity alleging that two thermostats made and sold by the defendant infringe claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10 and 14-20, inclusive. Nothing turns upon the particular language of any claim and it is sufficient to state that they cover a heatregulating system designed to control the rate of combustion in a furnace used to heat houses whether the fuel be solid, liquid or a gas and are primarily directed to the thermostat used in the system. For present purposes others parts of the heating system may be ignored. All the claims were held valid and infrined in the decree from which the defendant has appealed.