Landships II

That's very strange, considering Holt and Best were involved in an extraordinarily bitter (and astronomically costly) litigation from 1915 until 1918. Briefly, the Holt Manufacturing Company sued the C L Best Gas Tractor Company for selling crawler tractors which infringed Ben Holt's 1907 patent. Best's lawyers then bought all of Alvin Lombard's patents for $25,000 (Lombard, you might recall, had been building steam crawlers using small modified locomotives since 1904 for the logging industry) and counter-sued Holt (for $3,000,000) for infringement of Lombard's patents since 1904! Earlier, Lombard had visited Holt in 1910 and asked for royalty payments for infringement of prior patents; as Holt had ignored him, Lombard testified for Best at the trial. It looked like Best had outmanoeuvred Holt - until the end of 1918 when the presiding judge ruled in favour of Holt. There was a sting in the tail, however - seeing as Holt and Best had during the trial agreed to a license agreement (part of which involved Holt buying the Lombard patents from Best for $200,000), the court ruled that neither party could recover costs against one another. It was reckoned that the three-year court battle cost both sides a total of $2,000,000 in legal fees!

Now, I see one patent of Clarence Leo Best's (1,356,958, 26 October 1920), in which he acted as assignor to the Holt Manufacturing Company, was originally filed on 6 April 1914 (as 829,848), but 'divided' and filed on 15 February 1917, and finally granted in 1920. Could it be that it was only when it was 'divided' and filed that it became a joint Best-Holt patent under the new licensing agreement they had concluded during their litigation?

I feel sure that Tim Rigsby will have the answer...

This might seem like entry-level stuff, but while we're on the subject can anyone explain something I've never really grasped? I've never quite followed how the expression "caterpillar tracks" came about. At least one account says it was a nickname given to the tracks by British troops, which the company then adopted. On the other hand, some say the term was already in use by Holt's in 1912. The info in this topic seems to imply that  it didn't become a trade name until 1925. Does anyone know the real story?

Tim R wrote:

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Hello Gentleman

Ok here is a little information on the Holt, Best debate. C.L. Best sold his patents to Benjamin Holt in 1908, not 1925. Here is what happened, The Best Tractor Company sold out to Holt, as stated in 1908, Mr. Clarence Leo Best,{C. L. Best} in 1910 left his San Leandro plant manager job to start up his fathers business again. His father being Daniel Best, the originator of The Best tractor Company. C.L. Best started The C.L. Best Gas Traction Company, unfortunately he was unable to pick up where his father left of, so in 1925 he sold, and merged with the Holt Company to become what we know as the Caterpillar Tractor Company.
Therefore C. L. Best would appear on selected patents of that period.

There ends the mystery.

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Ah, thanks Tim, that's where I was getting confused. According to Wikipedia, Daniel Best's firm, the Best Manufacturing Company, was bought by Holt in 1910 (which is a bit off from what you said, but that's not massively pertinent to this issue), which is when Clarence Best went and formed his own separate business. It was Clarence's company which then got embroiled with Holt in 1915-1918 etc.

However, I still don't understand why Clarence would put his name to Holt patents as late as 1914/17, seeing as he had struck out on his own - unless it was something to do with the C L Best/Holt licensing agreement concluded some time during the 1915-18 court case...

Centurion wrote:

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I can see from this how patents filed in the 1908 -1910 period would have Clarence Leo Best as the inventor but be assigned to Holt. I must be missing something for I don't see why patents filed under Best's name after he had left Holt's employ would be assigned to Holt.

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Unless the licensing agreement signed by C L Best and Holt during the 1915-18 court battle meant that Best had to sign his patents in partnership with Holt. Now, first we need to know if such a clause existed; then we need to know when the agreement came into effect; and what implication this has for the patent dates.

The patent example I discussed earlier involved one first granted in 1914 - type patent number 1,232,482 into Google Patent, and you can find an identical patent to number 1,356,958 (26 October 1920) but without any mention of Holt. Only after it was 'divided' in 1917 and finally granted again in 1920 (as 1,356,958) was Holt added, presumably due to the licensing agreement(circumstantial evidence, to be sure, but logical).

Incidentally, if you type 'Alvin Lombard' into Google Patent, you can pull up some fascinating patents, includiing his first tracked vehicle and his steam log hauler. Look at page 10 of patent 1,234,355 and compare it with the first photo on this page: http://armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/WWII/tractor/bronetr0.html The suspension is identical.

-- Edited by Roger Todd at 15:06, 2007-02-18