Over the last couple of weeks I have been preparing another article for transfer across to my website. It's one I published a year ago on my Facebook page. This particular article, the Haviland and Gunn "Morse" article and the Quackenbush article are all intertwined with each other. I noticed that the "Gem" air rifle is common in all three.
Haviland and Gunn (well probably just Gunn) designed the combined cartridge and air rifle as well as just an air rifle version that we call today the Gem. He later sold his business to Quackenbush in 1882 (or perhaps 1880) who produced the rifle himself and licensed it to various German manufacturers. However, Quackenbush did not initially patent the design. Of course why would he, it was already available on the market from as early as 1871, and, afterall, he didn't design it.
Quackenbush did eventually patent his own design for the "combined" rifle in 1887, at least 5 years after he acquired Gunn's designs. I'll come back to this in a minute.
Gunn left Quackenbush in 1885. In fact he left on the very same day that he filed his repeating "Gem" air rifle patent. But that's besides the point.
In 1884, Theodor Bergmann (yes, that guy responsible for the Bergmann automatic pistols) licensed the combined Gem design from Quackenbush. But later in 1886, he (and his business partner Michael Flurscheim) cheekily raised their own patent for this design in Great Britain! Now, as far as I know, Quackenbush did not have a patent in GB at this time to cover "his" IPR.
My theory is that Quackenbush had no intention of raising a patent for the combined rifle as he thought it probably would be rejected as it had been in the public domain for about 10 years (he bought H&G in 1882 - or maybe 1880). But when he found out that Bergmann had been granted a patent in GB for "his" IPR and that Eisenwerke Gaggenau's products were being sold in the US, he may have decided he had to try to do something to protect his IPR in the US. But it took him a whole year after the Bergmann GB patent grant date to file his own.
So I wonder if that explains why it took so long for Quackenbush to file "his" combined cartridge and air rifle patent.
But what a superb blow from Bergmann. To raise and be granted a patent in GB and its territories.... it potentially gave him the right to impose a license on anyone who tried to distribute the rifle in any British territory (which in the late 19th century was perhaps the whole of the British empire!).
Thoughts?
All the best,
Jimmie
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Originally Posted by Garvin
