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The Times
Wednesday Aug 29 1849

Summer Assizes
Northern Circuit
Liverpool, August 27
Nisi Prius Court.-(Before Mr. Justice Pattison)
Sellers v. Dickenson

This was an action on the case for the infringemnet of a patent improvement of the power-loom, to which the defendant pleaded "Not Guilty," and several special pleas denying the newness of the invention, and alleging the specification to be insufficient.
Mr. Martin, Q.C., Mr. Atherton, and Mr. Webster appeared for the plaintiff; and Mr. Watson, Q.C., Mr. Crompton, and Mr. Cowling for the defendant.
The plaintiff in this case, it appeared, is a cotton spinner at Burnley in Lancashire, and the defendant is a power-loom manufacturer at Blackburn. The invention of the plaintiff is a mode of applying a "break" to the fly-wheel of the power-loom, by which means the loom was almost instantaneously steadily stopped working without injury to the machinery, the old mode being to stop it by a dead stop which shook and injured the machine, and also the web. There was also another improvement called a "clutch-box," which the plaintiff combined in his patent. By these means the power-loom could be worked 25 per cent. quicker. It was contended that the defendant had infringed patent by making machines identically the same in principle, but by a different arrangement of the machinery. For the defendant, it was contended that the "break" was old, and that the "clutch-box" was old; that the plaintiff only claimed by his specification a new arrangement and combination of these old inventions; and that the defendant's arrangement was different to the plaintiff's, and he did not combine the "clutch-box" with it.
Evidence to this effect having been called by the defendant, Mr. Martin replied.
His Lordship having summed up.
The jury found a verdict for the plaintiff on all the points left to them.
His Lordship then gave leave to the defendant to move to enter the verdict for him, of the Court above should be of opinion that the combination of the "clutch-box" and the "break" was the patent, and that the use of the break alone was no infringement of it.
This case, which occupied all Saturday and to-day concluded the assizes, a long disputed surgeon's account, which was expected to have occupied the Court some time, having been referred.

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Mel

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