Lawsuit

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This is a civial lawsuit from the 1800's.Not excatly but like the one that Issac Singer and Elias Howe had. They went to court about who made the firstmachine .Singer's sewing machine differed from Howe's: Its needle moved up and down, rather than sideways, and it was powered by a treadle rather than a hand crank. But it used the same lock stitch process and a similar needle.
Funded by a mortgage on his father's farm, Howe went to court and began to sue the infringers. After years of legal battles, his patent was upheld in 1854, and Singer was ordered to pay fifteen thousand dollars in back royalties. When the various manufacturers pooled their patents in 1856, Howe managed to negotiate a five-dollar royalty for each machine sold in the United States and one dollar for each sold abroad.("biography 4")