PARK AND CEMETERY. 
39 
ANOTHER MAUSOLEUM PATENT INVALIDATED 
The suit for infringing on a patented 
mausoleum construction brought by Mau- 
rice L. Knight against H. P. Rieger & 
Co., of Baltimore, has finally been con- 
cluded, and a study of the claims in the 
case and the evidence submitted will be 
of much interest to mausoleum builders. 
The judge’s decision was a sweeping vic- 
tory for the defense in every particular, 
and disposes definitely and conclusively of 
the claims for a patent that embodies noth- 
ing but the common methods of mausoleum 
construction that have been in practice for 
many years. We quote as follows the 
court’s decision in full : 
The Judge’s Decision. 
On December 27, 1910, letters patent No. 979,905 
were issued to the complainant. He still owns 
them. By his bill filed February 1, 1911, he alleged 
that the defendants had infringed upon the claims 
thereof. He asked for a preliminary injunction. 
The patent had not been adjudicated. It had but 
recently been issued. There had been no long gen- 
eral acquiescence in its validity. Nevertheless, the 
affidavits seemed to show the existence of some 
special circumstances which made a preliminary in- 
junction proper as against some of the defendants. 
It was issued. The patent has relation to the con- 
struction of vaults or mausoleums for the dead. 
The patentee says that his invention consisted of 
improved means for ventilating, draining, closing 
and sealing the crypts of such mausoleums and in 
other novel features of construction. No specifica- 
tions of such novel features is made. They are sup- 
posed to be written large on the face of the patent 
and of the claims and to be recognizable by that 
ideal person, a man skilled in the art. It has not 
been suggested that there are in fact any novel 
features about the method of closing and sealing 
crypts. At the hearing of the motion for a pre- 
liminary injunction it was vigorously contended that 
the way of ventilation and drainage shown in the 
patent Is both new and useful. It will be necessary 
to describe that method of ventilation. It is 
adapted to mausoleums of the usual construction. 
In these, the crypts are oblong stone or slate 
boxes, each of a size sufficient to contain a single 
burial casket. These crypts are arranged one above 
the other. One of the sides of each crypt is 
towards the interior of the mausoleum. It is through 
this side when open that a casket is placed in the 
crypt. The opposite side is parallel to the inner 
side of the external wall of the mausoleum. The 
problem is to afford means of ventilating and drain- 
ing the crypts into the open air while preventing 
all escape of air or liquids from them into the 
interior of the mausoleum. For the accomplish- 
ment of the former of such purposes, the patent 
directs that there shall be a space of some inches 
in breadth between the back walls of the crypts 
and the inner face of the exterior walls of the 
mausoleum. In the back wall of each crypt there 
are vents, one or more on the plane of the upper 
surface of the bottom slab or floor of the crypt 
and one or more near the plane of the under sur- 
face of its top or cover. These vents open into 
their air space between the crypts and the mau- 
soleum wall. The wall is pierced with one or 
more openings at or near the surface of the ground 
and with one or more at the top of the wall. It 
may also be desirable to have the ceiling fit 
closely upon the top of the crypts and to leave 
between it and the roof proper an air-space con- 
necting with the air-chambers between the crypts 
and the inner wall or walls of the mausoleum. 
In order that none of the air from the crypts 
shall escape into the interior of the mausoleum it 
is necessary to close by a suitable slab or wall all 
possibility of communication between these air- 
chambers and such interior. 
At the final hearing it was practically admitted 
that there was nothing novel in this method of 
ventilating and draining the crypts. It was old at 
the time of the plaintiff’s alleged invention. 
At the argument at the bar the contention of 
the plaintiff practically resolved itself into the 
claim that it was new to combine with this method 
of ventilation the arrangement by which each shelf 
of each crypt was secured in the wall of the mau 
solemn. 
The plaintiff is able to preserve the old ventilat 
ing system with its air-chamber and to secure the 
crypt shelves in the mausoleum walls by the sim- 
ple expedient of cutting out of the rear edge of 
each shelf for the greater portion of its length a 
rectangular strip of the approximate width of the 
desired air-chamber. This rectangular cut does not 
extend to either end of the shelf. There is, there- 
fore, left at each end a projecting tongue which 
bridges the air-chamber and is secured in the mau- 
soleum wall. 
It is not shown that any burial vault arranged 
precisely in this way had ever been made before 
the complainant applied for his patent or had ever 
been theretofore described in print or otherwise. 
It is admitted that no part of defendants’ shelves 
extend into, or across the air-chamber. Complain- 
ant claims, however, to find in defendants’ con- 
struction the equivalent of such shelf extension. 
It is admitted that in defendants’ construction 
there are a number of bricks wedged in the air- 
chamber and between the back wall of the crypt 
and the inner surface of the mausoleum wall. Such 
bricks are secured in place by piaster of paris and. 
as complainant contends, in some instances at least 
by wiring and other means. Defendants deny that 
these bricks form any part of their scheme of 
construction. According to their contention the 
bricks were placed where they were at the time the 
crypts were constructed for the purpose, and solely 
for the purpose of holding the back walls in posi- 
tion while the workman was engaged in securing 
them permanently to the top and bottom shelves. 
The bricks had no other purpose, and when that 
was accomplished their usefulness was at an end. 
It is not necessary to spend time in inquiring 
what was the purpose of the bricks. Complainant 
has no right to a patent so broad that it will 
cover any means of securing the shelf of a crypt 
to the wall of a mausoleum or of supporting a shelf 
by a wall. Yet he is not entitled to a decree In 
this case, unless whenever the old method of ven- 
tilating and draining the crypts is used and the 
crypt shelves are secured in or to the masoleum 
wall, his rights are infringed. 
It is said that this is an application of the fa- 
miliar rule, that a new combination of several old 
things may be patentable. 
It is not in any wise suggested in the evidence 
that the projecting tongues of the crypt shelves 
in complainant’s device play any part in ventilating 
or draining the crypts. That system of ventila- 
tion will work just as well whether the shelves are 
secured in the back wall or not. While the 
system of ventilation was old, it might conceivably 
have been found objectionable in practice because 
the crypt shelves were not secured to the mauso- 
leum wall. If such had been the case, that meth- 
od of ventilating could not have been made prac- 
tically useful until some way of overcoming this 
difficulty had been provided. 
I find nothing in the testimony to show that 
there ever had been any such difficulty. The se- 
curing of the shelf to the wall does not in any 
way contribute to the ventilating and draining of 
the crypts. The crypts are drained and ventilated 
precisely as they were in the prior art. The 
shelf is secured in the back wall in precisely the 
way in which many shelves time out of mind have 
been secured in all sorts of structures. Under such 
circumstances what the patentee claims is not a 
combination, hut an aggregation. 
It is difficult to say what may not amount to 
invention. A want may have been long felt. 
Many may have attempted to meet it without suc- 
cess. Someone solves the problem. The solution 
then appears to be simplicity itself. For all that 
there may be invention. It would take clear and 
convincing evidence that the need had been appre- 
ciated, and that others had) tried to supply it be- 
fore I could personally feel that there was any in- 
vention in securing a shelf to a wall in the way 
described in the patent in suit. In point of fact 
there is nothing in the record to suggest that any- 
one had ever before tried and failed to accomplish 
what the patentee says he has done. 
In view of the admitted state of the prior art, 
I can find nothing even remotely suggestive of in- 
vention in anything which the plaintiff claims to 
have done. One cannot appropriate to himself a 
part of the public domain unless he pays for it 
by contributing something to the world’s store of 
useful knowledge. 
The case has thus far been dealt with upon the 
assumption that a mausoleum of a particular con- 
struction was something, which, when new and use- 
ful was patentable. For the reusons already stated, 
it becomes unnecessary to inquire whether tills as- 
sumption is well or ill founded. The learned author 
of Walker on Patents, 4th edition, page IT, con- 
tends that the word "manufacture” as used in 
the patent law should be given a construction broad 
enough to cover everything made by the hands of 
man and not a machine or a composition of matter. 
The weight of the decided cases is to the contrary. 
Jacobs v. Baker, 7 Wall. 295; 
Fond du Lae County v. May, 137 U. S. 395; 
American Disappearing Bed Co. v. Arnnelsteen. 
182 Fed. 324; 
International Mausoleum Co. v. Sievert, 197 Fed 
930. 
It is not expedient to attempt to draw the line 
between the kinds of things for which a patent 
may properly issue and those for which it may not, 
unless the drawing of such line is absolutely neces- 
sary to the proper decision of the case. There is 
no such necessity presented by this record. 
The preliminary injunction, heretofore granted 
will be dissolved and the bill of complaint dis- 
missed. 
I he claim of the Knight patent, as set 
forth in the patent specification, read as 
follows ; 
In a vault or mausoleum, horizontal 
shelves having their rear edges secured in 
the inner face of a wall of the same and 
having rectangular openings at said edges 
extending for the greater portion of the 
length of the same and registering ver- 
tically, and vertical side and back walls 
forming loculi between said shelves having 
their back walls secured at the inner edges 
of the openings in the shelves to form a 
vertical air-chamber between the back 
walls and the wall of the mausoleum and 
through said openings, the wall of the 
mausoleum having openings at the top and 
bottom of the air-space.” 
W. B. Smith, attorney for Mr. Rieger, 
in discussing these claims said : 
“The horizontal shelves in the defendants’ struc- 
ture do not extend in any instance or to any de- 
gree whatever beyond the back vertical slabs, and 
are not tied to or secured in the wall of the 
structure. The only connection of any kind be- 
tween the back vertical slabs of the crypts and 
the) wall of the main structure in the rear consists 
of a brickbat or handful of plaster inserted at 
random between the back vertical slabs and the 
wall solely for the temporary purpose of holding 
the back slab in a perpendicular position until 
doweled and clamped to the bottom slab by the 
setter; and this temporary brickbat or plaster does 
not form an extension of the horizontal shelves 
or serve to secure said shelves in the wall of the 
structure. 
Obviously, the defendants have not infringed 
Knight’s alleged novel construction of horizontal 
shelves, inasmuch as the shelves of the defendants’ 
crypts do not extend beyond the back vertical 
slabs, and are not by the use of any equivalent so 
extended to the main wall. 
It is submitted that the defendants’ structure 
wholly dispenses with the complainant’s alleged 
novel construction of the horizontal shelves and 
the securing of said shelves in the main wall in 
the rear. 
The horizontal shelves, as well as the back slabs, 
are not secured, and were not intended to be 
secured in or to the main wall, for these shelves 
require no spell security, inasmuch as they are 
clamped to the back slabs and the whole crypt 
structure is secured and supported on its own 
foundation. Indeed, defendants’ witnesses declare 
that to secure the horizontal shelves in or to the 
main wall would be faulty and inadvisable. 
