The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

[The following note covers the entire court record for Edison Electric Light Company v. United States Electric Lighting Company]

This infringement suit was initiated by the Edison Electric Light Co. in 1885. The Edison interests claimed that the lamp patents of William E. Sawyer and Albon Man, which had been assigned to the United States Electric Lighting Co., infringed on Edison's patent for lamp filaments (U.S. Patent 223,898). Most of the testimony and exhibits from the 1881 patent interference case, Sawyer and Man v. Edison, were subsequently entered into the record of this case. Other testimony was heard in 1889 and 1890, and the appeal was argued in 1892. Depositions and exhibits from two other cases—Consolidated Electric Light Company v. McKeesport Light Company (the "McKeesport Case") and Edison Electric Light Company v. Westinghouse, Church, Kerr & Company (the "Trenton Feeder Case")—which were initiated at a later date but decided while this case was still being heard, were also entered into the record. The events detailed by the testimony and exhibits all occurred between 1878 and 1882. The original bill of complaint, filed in 1885, is bound with the patent interference (see Miscellaneous Bound Interferences). The Digest of Proofs and Index, which precedes the printed court records, provides a comprehensive name and subject index to the case.