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| 1912 patented coin purse that unintentionally helped set a legal precedent. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Do You Know the Muffin Bag?
The Plight of The Purse Patent Precedent
While The Vintage Purse Museum has touched on handbag design infringement in other articles, the following history illustrates how patents don’t necessarily protect the inventor or the company that produces the item.
The 1935 saga of the “Muffin” bag started twenty-five years earlier, in 1910, when Johannes “John” Specht (1845-1935) was working at a leather goods factory in New York. He was originally from Offenbach, a city in Germany known for its leather industry, and emigrated to the US in 1883. For reasons we’re about to share, we’re confident that the factory referred to in Mr. Specht's 1910 US Census listing was H.B. Hardenburg & Co., located at 60-74 Washington St., very close to the Brooklyn Bridge.
In 1910, Johannes "John" Specht was living with his teenage daughter Agnes. He had three older sons with Mary Kamper Specht (1846-1910), but it appears that John and Mary Specht were not Agnes's biological parents (although Agnes lists John Specht as her father on her marriage certificates). He may have been related to Agnes's mother, whose maiden name was Specht. We were unable to figure out how Agnes came to be under the guardianship of Mr. Specht.
H.B. Hardenburg & Co., named for its founder Henry Brigham Hardenburg (1858-1935), was a maker of advertising novelties such as coin purses, calendars, pocket knives, and other leather, metal, and wooden items. Most of H.B. Hardenburg’s clients were businesses that purchased these products in bulk with their names, addresses, and services imprinted on them so that they could be used as giveaways and souvenirs.
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| Front view of purse mirror (about 1 3/4" in diameter; mirror is on the reverse) made by the H.B. Hardenburg company, circa late 1890s to early 1900s, with paper advertising insert. The mirror is metal, and the insert is covered in glass. P.A. Meyer Clothier & Tailor (later P.A. Meyer & Sons) operated from the 1880s until at least 1983 (date of most recent newspaper advertisement we could find). Mirror from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
H.B. Hardenburg is said to have coined the phrase, “Personal advertising pays,” which appeared on company letterhead along with a sketch of their headquarters. (The company had several different addresses, but the letterhead we saw online was from the Washington St. location.) By all accounts a colorful character, Mr. Hardenburg was not only an entrepreneur, but a politician, having served a 20-year stint as mayor of Linden, New Jersey. (For more information about the Hardenburg family, see this Facebook page, run by H.B. Hardenburg's great-great granddaughter, Lorraine Yuriar.)
26 Jan 1920, Mon Daily News (New York, New York) Newspapers.comAssigning rights to a secondary individual or company was common with patents, as many inventors worked for—or were otherwise affiliated with—a larger entity. Mr. Specht worked at Mr. Hardenburg’s factory, making leather “pocketbooks,” as indicated in US Census records, as well as in an 1884 newspaper article about his dispute with a relative. He was also called a "purse maker" on his sons' birth certificates. (Note: In this case, “pocketbooks” refers to leather items such as coin purses and document holders. As to the use of the colloquialism “pocketbook” instead of the more formal “handbag,” we explored this topic in a previous article.)
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Johannes "John" Specht's coin purse patent, screenshot via Google.
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We have two examples of this coin purse in The Vintage Purse Museum collection. They are not marked with the Hardenburg company name, nor are they imprinted with another business’s name for advertising purposes; however, they were more than likely created from Mr. Specht’s patented design.
We saw a coin purse online similar to Mr. Specht's design with a "Made in Japan" adhesive label, which would date it to about the 1960s. We don't have it in our possession, so we can't confirm that the sticker is original to the coin purse. However, the second example of the Specht design that we have in our collection looks very much like the one we saw online, sans country of origin sticker. It is slightly larger than the original 1910s version, feels like textured vinyl rather than leather, and has what appears to be a much more recent snap closure. Other than those differences, it clearly mimics Specht's frame and structure. This leads us to believe these coin purses were indeed reproduced in Asia in the 1960s or thereabouts. During this era, handbag imports greatly affected other US handbag makers whose patents had expired, including Lumured. But our focus here is the evolution of the Specht design three decades earlier.
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| More modern version of the Specht coin purse, made of textured vinyl, circa 1960s. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
By 1920, John Specht was living with his daughter Agnes, her second husband, and their two young children. Mr. Specht passed away in 1935, shortly after his 90th birthday, in Brooklyn, New York. His death certificate said that he was a retired “pocket-book maker.”
After suffering financial losses during the Great Depression, H.B. Hardenburg moved from the East Coast to Tucson, Arizona, where he, too, died in 1935 at age 77. The May 21, 1935 Arizona Star newspaper announcement of his death (four days prior) said that he had been a resident of Tucson for just six months.
By coincidence, that same year, David Lewis (1901-1949), brother of haberdasher and handbag maker Nat Lewis (1881-1956), filed a patent for a purse with an origami-like folding frame. This design was to become Lewis Purses, Inc.’s style known as the "Muffin.” We don't know why it was called this, but it could be because the pouch portion puffs out a bit like a muffin top when you add personal items to the bag.
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| David Lewis's 1935 purse patent, screenshot from Google. |
It is possible that David Lewis's design was inspired by Mr. Specht's, as a major similarity is both items' unique frame and general structure. However, the rustic leather and the diminutive dimensions of the 1910s coin purse are quite different from the size and elegance of the 1930s Lewis bag.
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Unlabeled brocade bag in the style of David Lewis's patented design. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.
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We found several 1935 newspaper advertisements for the Muffin, and we have two Muffin-style handbags—one unlabeled, and one with the Coblentz Original imprint. It is unlikely that the unlabeled bag is by Lewis as we've seen a Lewis-labeled Muffin handbag online, and it has a slightly different clasp. As you can see below, the velvet Coblentz bag has a clasp that is nearly identical to the brocade bag above.
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| Coblentz black velvet bag, made in the style of David Lewis's design. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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| Interior of bag above, with coin purse. |
David Lewis’s 1935 invention resulted in a 1936 patent infringement case between Nat Lewis Purses (plaintiff) and a company called Carole Bags (defendant).
We had never heard of Carole Bags prior to learning of this lawsuit, but we discovered that this company was headed by Mitchell Bienen (1898-1981), part of the Bienen handbag dynasty, best known for its Bienen-Davis line of handbags. Mitchell’s daughter’s middle name was “Carol,” so it’s possible she was the namesake for the Carole brand. Interestingly, we found the connection between Mitchell Bienen and Carole Bags because Mr. Bienen testified in the complicated 1940s Annette Handbag Co. v. Edward Cerretta brand-name infringement case, which we covered in our article about the history of corde. In reading this testimony, we learned that the Bienens also owned the Ronay line of handbags.
Carole Bags apparently acknowledged the design infringement, but a temporary injunction (in legal jargon, "injunction pende lite"), seemingly against the patent itself rather than the production and sale of the bags, was denied. So, while the case was pending, Carole Bags presented evidence to the court to prove they had a right to the design. This evidence was none other than Johannes “John” Specht’s 1912 patent. What’s remarkable is that they discovered it at all. This was 1936, and there was no Internet, no Google, no easy access to patent paperwork. One of Carole Bags's attorneys—or someone who worked for the attorneys—must’ve pored over numerous documents in a library or patent office to find the Specht patent and note its similarities to David Lewis’s design.
That is, unless Carole Bags had previously found Specht’s design—or an example of the actual 1910s coin purse—and was using it as a model for their line of Muffin-style bags. Or, Carole Bags could have outright copied the Muffin, as Lewis's lawsuit claimed. But Specht’s patent expired in 1929, so the design would’ve been up for grabs, and the idea for a Muffin-style handbag could very well have simultaneously occurred to multiple 1930s manufacturers. However, Specht's patent's expiration also meant that David Lewis had every right to employ some of the elements of Specht’s coin purse in his handbag design, while believing that his own patent provided protection from imitators.
It did not.
In the May 1936 appeal, three circuit court judges decided that the Lewis handbag was not all that different from the Specht patented coin purse, and that practically anyone could have made it.
Here’s the first paragraph of their decision (edited for brevity, bold portion ours): “This is an appeal from a decree denying an injunction pendente lite for the acknowledged infringement of design patent, No. 96,768. Though the patent, which is for a woman's purse, has never been adjudicated, the defendant must make some attack upon its validity to justify its conduct. It does; it has produced Specht's patent, 1,022,976, and some purses manufactured in accordance with its disclosure. There are differences between these and...the patented design...There are also differences in proportion...Finally, the general effect of the patented design is more pleasing and trimmer, so that if the defendant confined itself to Specht's design, the plaintiff would be content. Nevertheless, it is plain to us that it was a very simple matter, with Specht's purse before him, for any ordinary designer to produce the patented design...no more was really involved than changing the size. If the test of invention is the same for design, as for mechanical, patents, the patent in suit cannot survive. There has undoubtedly been some vacillation about that question in the books. Some opinions appear to imply that if a design be new and pleasing enough to catch the trade, nothing more is required.”
Here's the last paragraph of their decision (edited; bold ours): “True, the piracy of designs, especially in wearing apparel, has been often denounced as a serious evil and perhaps it is; perhaps new designs ought to be entitled to a limited copyright. Efforts have been made to induce Congress to change the law so as to give some such protection, without success so far; and until it does, new designs are open to all, unless their production demands some salient ability...the plaintiff can succeed only in the event that an innocent and spontaneous reproduction of the design would also be unlawful. Plainly it is a debatable question whether the law should create such a monopoly, unless the monopolist's contribution is something out of the common. On the showing here made, the patent is invalid.”
Our interpretation of this is that the judges agreed that apparel design theft is an ongoing problem—but it’s something that should ultimately be addressed by a higher authority. However, their conclusion was that almost anyone can guilelessly make any apparel-related design and call it their own, and that no one has the right to monopolize a trending style or infer that others who make it are in violation of the law.
As to that last sentence of their decision, presumably they couldn’t invalidate a US patent, but they could say that it wasn’t relevant in terms of this lawsuit. Therefore, Carole Bags Inc.—as well as every other bag maker that wanted to produce this style—could legally do so, as evidenced by The Vintage Purse Museum's Coblentz bag pictured above.
The outcome of Nat Lewis Purses, Inc. v. Carole Bags, Inc. was cited as a precedent in decisions of an astounding 45 unrelated lawsuits (that we could find online). Most of these were dated from the 1930s through 1962, although we found one as recent as 1994. This is the very reason we wrote this article: to show how extremely difficult it is to enforce and protect a design patent in the apparel and accessories industry.
Johannes "John" Specht's 1912 patent expired in 1929. David Lewis's 1935 purse patent had a term of three-and-a-half years, and was not renewed at the end of this period. The way fashion cycles, we wouldn't be surprised if a contemporary designer decided it's about time to bring back the Muffin. They wouldn't even have to apply for a patent.
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Special thanks to Lorraine Yuriar of the Hardenburg Family Genealogy Project. Other resources used for this article were Newspapers.com and MyHeritage.com, to which we have paid subscriptions. We also used Google, Courtlistener.com and Familysearch.org. This article c2024 by Wendy Dager/The Vintage Purse Museum. Please do not use photos or information from our website without requesting permission, vintagepursemuseum@gmail.com.
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