Schnitzer

This appeal is' from an interlocutory decree holding valid and infringed letters patent No/1,747,942, issued to Karl Lanninger.-Lanninger is an enemy alien, and appellee Crowley, as Alien Property Custodian, was substituted as plaintiff in his stead. Appellee California Corrugated Culvert Company is a licensee of the patentee.

The invention relates to conduits for conducting water for irrigation and other purposes, and specifically to the joints between the conduit pipes. The purpose of the invention, it is said, was to provide a joint sufficiently flexible to permit of the pipes’ being laid over irregular ground, and readily disconnectible so as to permit of the easy removal of a line of pipes from one area to another. As described in the specifications, the coupling sleeve has an internally threaded cylindrical neck screwed on the threaded end of a pipe. The other neck of the sleeve is also cylindrical but smooth so that the end of the companion pipe can be inserted through the neck “and through the hat shaped rubber packing,” the “flange” of which “is held in a recess” of the sleeve. The cup of the rubber packing fits tightly over the end of the inserted pipe, and this pipe is…