Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 6.djvu/391

 TALE LOCK MANUf'G CO. f. NORWICH NAT. BAKK. 379 �Edmund Wetmore, Causten Brown,3tnaGeo, Ticknor Cwtis, iox plaintiff. �Samuel A. Duncan and Benjamin F. Thurston, for defend- ants. �Shipman, D. J. The suit against the Norwich National Bank is a bill in equity, founded upon the alleged infringement of three letters patent now owned by the plaintiff s, viz. : re-issued letters patent No, 8,550, issued January 21, 1879, to the Yale Lock Manufacturing Company, as assignee of Samuel A. Lit- tle, the original patent to Little having been granted January 27, 1874; letters patent No. 173,366, granted FebruaryS, 1876, to the said company, as assignee of Emory Stockwell; and re-issued letters patent No. 7,947, to James Sargent, dated November 13, 1877, the original patent, having been dated September 25, 1877. The first two patenta are for improve- ments in "timelocks;" the third patent is for an improvement in a combined time lock, combination lock, and boit work for safe and vault doors. The bill in equity against the New Haven Savings Bank relates only to the first two patents, �The objeot of the Little invention was to furnish a time lock by which the multiple boit work of a safe or vault door could be automatically both "dogged," or locked, and unlocked at predetermined times; the dogging and releasing being caused by the operation of the time mechanism, and the time for locking or for unlocking being capable of alteration at the will of the operator, without disturbance of the clock- work. Before this invention, automatic unlocking at a pre- determined time, and locking whenever the door was shut and the bolts were thrown, were known. No arrangement of time mechanism had been applied to a safe door by means of which locking would take place automatically at a prede- termined time. Time locks which lock by the operation of time mechanism after the bolts have been thrown are called after-lockers. Locking at the time when the bolts are thrown is called instant locking. �The inventor says in bis specification : "I provide adjusta- ble devices, so that the periods when the lock shall be locked and unlooled may be varied at will; and I also provide a ��� �