US Patent: 117,682
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Improvement in bearings for machinery
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Patentee:
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Charles B. Richards (exact or similar names) - Hartford, CT |
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Patent Dates:
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Granted: |
Aug. 01, 1871 |
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Jeff Joslin Vintage Machinery entry for Charles T. Porter Treatise on the Richards steam-engine indicator. Vintage Machinery entry for Elliott Brothers
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Description: |
This invention represented a significant improvement in steam engine indicators and was an enabling technology for the development of high-speed steam engines. Richards seems to have sold the rights to Charles Talbot Porter, who in turn sold the rights to Elliott Brothers. That firm reportedly manufactured over 10,000 indicators over the next decade and then sold the rights to Hannan & Buchanan of Glasgow. Elliott Brothers had been paying Richards a 10% royalty based on a verbal agreement; when Hannan and Buchanan discovered that the agreement was not in writing, they refused to pay any royalties at all. Once the patent expired, it seems that Porter arranged for instrument maker Louis Casartelli of Liverpool to continue manufacturing Richards indicators. This continued into the first decade of the 20th century. J. W. Thompson's 1875 patent 167,364 was an improvement on Richards' patent, |
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