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WOOD PAVEMENT.--STEAD v. WILLIAMS AND OTHERS.
(Abridged from the Liverpool Albion.)
This was an action for an infringement of a patent for the paving of
roads, streets, &c. with timber or wooden blocks. Mr Martin and Mr
Webster were for the plaintiff; Mr Warren and Mr Hoggins for the
defendants; Mr John Duncan, of 72 Lombard street, was the solicitor for
the plaintiff.
The plaintiff is Mr David Stead, formerly a merchant of the City of
London; the defendants are, nominally, Mr Lewis Williams, and several
others, who are the surveyors of streets and paving at Manchester; but
the action was really against the Metropolitan Wood Paving Company.
About the year 1836 or 1837 Mr Nystrom, a Russian merchant, with whom Mr
Stead had had transactions in business came to England, having whilst in
Russia devoted his attention to the mode of pavement in that country,
which was done in a great measure by wood. He communicated with Mr
Stead, who paid a great deal of attention to the matter, and materially
improved the scheme; and it was the intention of Mr Nystrom and Mr
Stead, in 1835 or 1837, to take out a patent, but Mr Nystrom found it
necessary to return to Russia, and thus frustrated that intention.
On the 19th of May, 1838, the plaintiff, however, took out a patent, and
this was the one to which attention was directed. Four months were
allowed for inrolment, but as six months was the usual period, the
plaintiff imagined that that would be the period allowed to him, and
inadvertently allowed the four months to elapse before he discovered his
mistake.
On the 21st of June, 1841, however, an Act of Parliament was passed,
confirming the patent to Mr Stead, as though it had been regularly filed
within the prescribed period. A second patent was afterwards obtained,
but that related more particularly to the form of blocks. The first
patent, which had been infringed, was for an invention consisting of a
mode of paving with blocks of similar sizes and dimensions, of either a
sexagonal, triangular, or square form, so as to make a level road or
surface.
The defendants pleaded, amongst other things, that the patent was not an
original invention; that it was not useful; and that it was in use prior
to the granting of the patent.
The Jury retired to consult at a quarter past four, and returned at
twenty minutes to six o'clock with a verdict for the plaintiff.
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