Citation Numbers: 1 F. Cas. 175, 1 Ban. & A. 327
Judges: McKennan
Filed Date: 6/12/1874
Status: Precedential
Modified Date: 7/20/2022
The complainant’s bill is founded upon letters patent, reissued to it, as assignee of Abner B. Ma-gown, for an adjustable window screen. “The nature of the said invention consists of an adjustable window screen, composed of two or more frames, each frame being covered with wire or other gauze, and sliding within guides, attached to either or both of the frames, being so constructed that each screen, when completed, can be immediately adjusted to windows of various widths, without altering the screen, viz., without adding to, or deducting anything from, it.” The novel merit of this screen consists in its adjustability to windows of various widths, after the gauze is attached to it. This is the only essential difference between it and the mosquito frame, patented by Lewis S. Thompson, on the 24th February, 1863, three years before the date of Magown’s patent Thompson’s frame must first be fitted to the opening intended to be covered, and a netting, of suitable width, then attached to it. In Magown’s, however, this separate adjustment of the frame and the netting is avoided, by its being composed of two frames covered with gauze, held together by a metallic guide, and, by sliding them in or out laterally, it may be fitted .to the width of any opening. But the adaptability of both screens, to the purpose for wliich they are to be used, is due to the adjustability of thin frames. The frames' must be, and are, capable of extension and contraction to fit them to openings of varying widths. This capability, therefore, is a fundamental condition of both inventions.
Now, Thompson was the first inventor of an adjustable frame for a window screen, and, I think, the frame forming the basis