Lektophone Corp. v. Rola Co.

The appellant, being the owner and assignee of patents Nos. 1,271,529 and 1,271,527, issued to Marcus C. Hopkins, July 2, 1918, upon applications filed July 14, 1913, claims that these patents, and particularly claims 1 to 8, inclusive, of the former, and 29 and 30 of the latter, are infringed by a radio loud speaker manufactured by the appellee, and seeks the usual remedies, which were denied in the lower court.

The Hopkins patents were of sound-reproducing instruments for phonographs. The vibrating and sound-reproducing element, styled by the' patentee a tympanum, was in form a plane annulus, from which projected a right cone, with axis perpendicular to the plane of the annulus. As stated in the patent: “The whole diameter of the tympanum * * * should exceed nine inches, in order that the conditions required to regenerate the sound waves in the manner above described shall be fulfilled. The case of the central conical portion 1 should exceed in area one-half of the effective area of the entire tympanum; * * * in other words, the diameter of the base of said conical portion should he at least eight-tenths of the diameter of said aperture. The altitude of the conical portion 1…