Insulator suit between Locke and R. Thomas & Sons decided in Locke's favor

TRADE NEWS.

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Friends of Fred M. Locke of Victor, N. Y., will be glad to learn that the controversy over the inventorship of the insulator manufactured by him, and comprising two or more shells of porcelain nested together and fused together with glaze, has been decided by the examiner in the Patent Office in his favor. Mr. Locke filed his application for letters-patent in February, 1897, and in August of the same year Mr. Boch, of the R. Thomas & Sons company of East Liverpool, O., filed an application for the same thing. An interference was declared between the two applications, and also between Mr. Locke and a patent granted March 8, 1898, to Mr. Boch, which comprises substantially the same invention, except that the parts were fused together with extra glaze. Interference proceedings have been pending since September, 1897, and the examiner has now decided that Mr. Locke has proved "that Locke was the first to conceive, disclose and reduce to practice the invention in issue. Judgment of priority is awarded to Fred M. Locke." In the second interference with the patent of Mr Boch; the examiner held that "whichever party is entitled to prevail as to the issue in one interference is equally entitled to prevail in the other; the fact in this instance, the burden of proof is upon Locke, and that Boch is the patentee, is of no moment, for to the examiner's mind Locke has established his claims of priority beyond a reasonable doubt. Judgment of priority of invention is awarded to Fred M. Locke."

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