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' Street (Railway Journal. Vol. XII. NEW YORK AND CHICAGO, MARCH, 1896. No. 3. FUNDAMENTAL ELECTRIC RAILWAY PATENTS OF THE GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY. The recent decisions sustaining the Van Dei^oele under- upwardly pressed by means of a spring, and to hinge the running trolley railway patents are of the greatest interest pole to the car and make it turn on a pivot; nor that any to all who own or operate electric street railway's by reason one, prior to March 12, 1887, the date of the application of the fundamental character of the patents and well-nigh for the first patent, had described, in an electric railway, universal use of the inventions on all trolley roads. the combination .specified in the infringed claims. ' ' It is well known that Mr. \'an Depoele was a pioneer ' The earlier electric railways, when equipped with in electric railroading and gave especial attention to the wire conductors above the car, maintained contact there- ' development of a practicable system in which the current with by means of over-running ' trolleys, connected by a should be supplied to the motors from an overhead conduc- cord or wire with the car, and towed along above the sur- tor. The roads installed by the \^an Depoele Company face of the conductor. The.se devices were impracticable were the first in which the overhead trolley towed by the for general u.se, because of uncertainty of connection, lack car was discarded and replaced by the under-running of adaptability to various forms of switches, varying ten- trolley system now in such universal use. sion, liability to derailment, and for other reasons." The Van Depoele railwa}- patents were acquired by the The claims of the patent upon which infringement Thom.son-Houston Electric Company in i8S8, and are now was charged are of generic .scope, one of them reading : coxitroUed by the General Electric Company. After pro- "6. In an electric railway, the combination with a ceedings in the Patent Office running over some years, suitable track and a supply conductor suspended above the there was granted Mr. Van Depoele a mo.st important track of a car provided with a swinging arm carrying a patent for his under-running trolley system, No. 495,443, contact device in its outer extremity, and means for im- dated April 11, 1893. A suit for infringement upon this parting upward pressure to the outer portion of the arm patent was instituted by the Thomson-Houston Electric and contact, to hold the latter in continuous working rela- Company against the Winchester Aveniie Railroad Com- tion with the under .side of the supply conductor, substan- pany, of New Haven, shortly after the grant of the patent. tially as described." The case was most vigorously contested and over five Other claims mention the grooved contact-wheel and a thousand pages of te-stimon}' taken on both sides, di.scu.ss- tension .spring for pressing the wheel upwards into contact ing most minutely the prior state of the art, the validity of with the trolley wire. the patent and the real merit of Mr. Van Depoele's early The opinion of the Court endorses the generic character contributions to electric railroading. of these claims b}^ holding : A decision has recently been rendered b}' Judge Town- " The patented invention No, 495,443, as stated by send, of the United States Circuit Court for the District of complainant's expert, ' con.si.sts generally in an electric Connecticut, completelj^ sustaining the patent and the railway having an overhead conductor and a car for said claims of the Thomson-Houston Electric Company there- railwa}' provided wath a contact device carried by the car under. The oninion of the Court finds that the Van so as to form a unitar}- structure therewith, and consisting Depoele system is one of great utility and that Van Depoele of a trailing-arm, hinged and pivoted to the car so as to was the first to put into practical operation a trolley road bridge the space between it and the conductor and move of this character. The Court held: freely both laterally and vertically, and .said arm carrying " The combination of devices, described in Patent No. at its outer end a contact device capable of being pressed 495,443, is of great utility in the art of electric railroading, upward by a suitable tension device into engagement with " and has superseded every other known apparatus. The the under side of the conductor.' experts for defendant admit that they do not know that The Court further recognizes the meritorious character any one other than Van Depoele, prior to September, 1885, of Mr. Van Depoele's work by .saying: ' when he put said apparatus into practical operation, had ' No one can read this record without being impressed proposed to equip the car of an electrically propelled road by the fact that Van Depoele was more than a skilled me- with a contact device mounted on the end of a long pole chanic in the art of electric railway propulsion. The Patent ' ^ " 62 STREET RAILWAY JOURNAL. [Vol.. XII. No. 3. Office has raised a presumption in his favor as an inventor ranged that the trolley is properly guided on the conductor by the grant of numerous patents to him. Some thirty .switch by the action of the track-switch. This group com- have been introduced by defendant, several of which cover prises a number of claims, one of which reads as follows: highly meritorious inventions which have largely contrib- " In a branching electric railway, the combination uted to the successful practical operation of the trolley with a vehicle of a track-switch, an overhead conductor- roads throughout the country. ' switch and a contact-arm extending upward from the The prior state of the art is reviewed at length in the vehicle to the conductor, and so located relatively to the Court's opinion, but nothing was found to anticipate Van length of the vehicle and the two .switches that the lateral Depoele. On the contrary, the opinion holds : movement of the vehicle will give a corresponding move- ' ' He ( Van Depoele ) made an invention within all the ment of the contact-device on the conductor- switch." rules applicable to this question." It will be seen that this describes and embraces the A second invention of Mr. Van Depoele' s comprises prevailing arrangement employed on all trolley roads. the familiar apparatus and combination of apparatus The third group of claims relates to an under-running whereby cars, operated in accordance with his under-run' trolley system in which the trolley is provided with a ning system, may run not only on a straight-away track spring tending to restore it to its normal central position. but be switched from one track to another automatically One of these reads: without any manual manipulation of the trolley arm. This, "In an electric railway, the combination, with an as is well known, consists in general of an overhead switch overhead conductor and a vehicle, of a trailing contact-arm or frog attached to the trolley wire and properly designed guided at its outer end by the overhead conductor, and to receive the trolley wheel, and a track switch so arranged movable laterally relatively to the vehicle, but having a in combination with the trolley and frog, that the trolley normal centralizing tendency by means of a spring or is automatically guided in the desired direction. This, of weight. course, is essential to the operation of all overhead roads. After the decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals, Such an arrangement is described and protected by a the defendant made application to the Supreme Court of number of fundamental claims in the Van Depoele patent the U. S. for a writ of certiorari, with a view of having No. 424,695, dated April i, 1890, and likewise controlled by the case carried to the Supreme Court by the only method the General Electric Company. This patent was first sus- of appeal possible, where the Circuit Court of Appeals has tained by Judge Coxe, of the United States Circuit Court, no doubt as to the correctness of its decision, as was the for the Northern District of New York, in a suit brought case here. This attempt to secure further consideration of by the Thomson-Houston Electric Company against the the case has been denied, and the Circuit Court has Elmira & Honseheads Railroad Company, of Elmira. The granted a decree in accordance with the instructions of the opinion was rendered last summer, whereupon an appeal Court of Appeals, definitely and finally sustaining the was immediately taken by the defendant to the Circuit claims already referred to, and ordering the issuing of an Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and in Decen:ber inj unction. last the Court of Appeals filed an opinion sustaining a A niimber of other suits have been started against in- number of claims of the most important character. The fringers of the Van Depoele patents, and preliminary in- opinion was written by Judge Wallace, and for convenience junctions have already been granted against the New York the claims were divided into three groups. One of these Electrical Works and the Fiberite Company restraining groups comprises claims for an overhead trolley wire and a further infringement of patent No. 424,695. switch-plate attached thereto for receiving the under-run- It will be of interest to foreign readers of the Strekt ning trolley wheel, as specified ' low. Railway Journal to know that the Van Depoele inven- " The combination, with an overhead wire for receiv- tions are protected by a large number of patents in ing an underneath contact, of a switch-plate attached to foreign countries which patents are controlled either by the wire in about the same horizontal plane as the wire." the General Electric Company or the various foreign com- Another group relates to the combination of a trolley panies with which the General Electric Company has es- and conductor-switch with a car and track-switch, all .so ar- tablished business relations.

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