I am looking for a court case that happened from 1899 to May of 1900. Samuel F. O'Reilly VS. Elmer E. Getchell. Not really sure how to go about this and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Question

Me and a co-worker are working on documentation of ealy tattoo history and patents, I have became aware of a dispute between Sam O'Reilly (credited with the first tattoo machine patent) and a man named Elmer Getchell. I would like to obtain the court records but have no clue how to go about finding the case number, the county it was in and so on requierd to purchase the documents. Any help in how to go about obtaining this information will be greatly appreciated.

keith styer · Answer

here is an article about his lawsuit. Contacting them they may tell you where they got the&#160; court records. Samuel O'Reilly vs. Elmer Getchell

Larry Shockley · Answer

Knowing what State and City the court case took place in is VERY important in researching these items. The NARA guide to researching court records can be found here:&#160; National Archives Court Records | National Archives

Larry Shockley · Answer

The fastest way to get your question answered would probably be to contact the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office at: United States Patent and Trademark Office I was able to locate the patent in question by researching the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office web site at:&#160;&#160; Patent Images There is another copy with details included here: http://edison.rutgers.edu/00464801.pdf Charlie Wagner supposedly "improved upon" O&#8217;Reilly&#8217;s tattoo machine design in 1904. See U.S. Patent No. 768,413 (filed Apr. 19, 1904) Further research reveals a work titled INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY NORMS IN THE TATTOO INDUSTRY by Aaron Perzanowski: "In 1891, another New York tattooer, Samuel O&#8217;Reilly, invented the tattoo machine, a device that fundamentally reshaped tattooing." https://web.stanford.edu/dept/law/ipsc/Paper%20PDF/Perzanowski,%20Aaron%20-%20Paper.pdf

Patrick Connelly · Answer

Patent disputes are typically found in federal suits.&#160; Prior to 1938, these were Equity Cases filed primarily in the circuit courts.&#160; Since O'Reilly is a citizen of New York and is complaining against O'Reilly, I would expect the case to be heard in the US Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York.&#160; A review of the index shows that O'Reilly did file a bill of complaint against Getchell in April 1899.&#160; All of case papers can be found in USCC, SDNY, Equity Case File O-7211.&#160; You can request copies of this file by emailing newyork.archives@nara.gov .&#160; The charge for copies is $20 for the first 25 pages (this is a minimum fee) and $.80 each additional page.

Alan Walker · Answer

This may be a patent interference case, which would be at our Archives II facility. Here is the listing for the series in our catalog: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/563063 There is no online finding aid for this series, however, so please contact Archives2Reference@nara.gov for help in tracking down this case.

I am looking for a court case that happened from 1899 to May of 1900. Samuel F. O'Reilly VS. Elmer E. Getchell. Not really sure how to go about this and any help would be greatly appreciated.

Top Replies