Owens Bottle Company & Henry M. Brookfield

Owens Bottle Company Begins Suits.

The Owens Bottle Company and the Toledo Glass Company of Toledo, O., and the Hazel-Atlas Glass Company of Wheeling, W. Va., on February 16th filed an infringement suit in the United States Court at Toledo, O., against the O'Neill Machine Company, of Toledo, and have announced that similar suits were filed in the Federal Court at Indianapolis, Ind., against the Hart Glass Company of Dunkirk, Ind.

Notices of infringement have also been sent out by the Owens' interests to approximately thirty-five manufacturers of bottles in various parts of the country and considerable litigation is anticipated.

The suits are based on five United States patents owned by the Owens company as follows: No. 836,297, November 20, 1906 and No. 883,779, April 7, 1908, issued to Henry M. Brookfield of New York City; No. 919,120, April 20, 1909, issued to William Emil Bock of Toledo, Ohio, and No. 1,382,993 and 1,382,994, June 28, 1921, issued to Clyde R. Lott of Washington, D. C.

The Owens company asserts that these patents control the feeder method of making bottles automatically, which has lately become of considerable importance. It is an entirely separate and distinct process from the vacuum method carried on by the Owens machine.

The Owens company claims that the method developed in recent years with considerable success by the O'Neill Machine Company, involving a semi-automatic machine for making glass bottles to which there has lately been added a feeding method, involves an infringement of the Owens' patent.