Sydney Roth and Otto Powell, Doing Business as S. Roth Company v. Roberts Manufacturing Co., a Corporation

This appeal is taken from judgment in favor of appellee as plaintiff in a suit for patent infringement. Adams Patent 2,-677,145, held by appellee, was adjudged valid and infringed. The appeal presents no issue of infringement. The sole question relates to validity. Appellant contends that the patent is lacking in invention and that the district court was clearly erroneous in finding otherwise.

The Adams patent is denominated a carpet securing device and deals with the problem, encountered in laying carpet wall-to-wall, of fastening and concealing the cut edge of the carpet.

The art of laying carpet is concerned, among others, with two related problems : (1) that of maintaining the carpet in a stretched condition upon the floor (which we shall denominate the “stretching problem”); (2) that of securing the cut edge of the carpet in such a manner as to prevent unraveling (which we shall designate the “edging problem”). The common method of meeting the stretching problem is to tack the carpet to the floor. The common method of meeting the edging problem is to “turn and tack”- — that is, to double the edge under and tack it through its doubled thickness. These methods have long been…