Concrete Appliances Co. v. Gomery, 269 U.S. 177 (1925)

Concrete Appliances Company v. Gomery


No. 44


Argued October 14, 15, 1925
Decided November 16, 1925
269 U.S. 177

CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

Syllabus

1. Concurrent findings of the district court and circuit court of appeals against the novelty of a patented device will be reviewed by this Court when a contrary conclusion in respect of the same patent claims has been reached by the circuit court of appeals in another circuit. P. 180.

2. Judicial notice taken that the principle of conveying and distributing mobile substances by gravity has found exemplification for centuries in apparatus for raising and distributing water. P. 180.

3. In view of the state of the art, patent No. 948,719 (as to Claims 1, 2, 5 and 13) for a combination of apparatus designed for transferring wet concrete or other plastic materials from a source of supply to working points on a building or other structure in course of construction, is void for want of invention, the combination being no more than an application of mechanical skill to known elements in the course of a natural development of the art. P. 184.

4. The combination comprised: (1) a tower; (2) a boom, oscillatory or swinging horizontally, adjustably connected with the tower and adapted to be arranged at various points in its height; (3) a conduit carried by the boom, extending laterally from the tower, connected to it and adjustable vertically at varying heights in the tower; (4) a means for raising plastic material to the height desired in the tower, and (5) a means for receiving the plastic material from the raising means and conducting it to the conduit, both the raising means and the receiving means being adjustable vertically at varying heights in the tower.

291 F. 486 affirmed.

Certiorari to a decree of the circuit court of appeals for the Third Circuit which affirmed a decree of the district court (see 284 F. 518) dismissing the bill in a suit to enjoin infringement of the petitioners’ patent.