Defendant
1 case as defendant.
Note on entity type: The database entry "Henry A. Desper" is a natural person — an individual 19th-century inventor — not a corporation. There is no modern company behind this name, so the standard corporate-profile fields (headquarters, founding year, ticker, employee or revenue bands) do not apply and cannot be verified. I found no reliable source giving his birth/death dates, residence, or business affiliations.
Overview. Desper appears in the patent-litigation record only as the holder of U.S. Letters Patent No. 144,747, granted November 18, 1873, for an "improvement in fluid meters," and as a defendant (one of several, per the opinion's reference to "the defendants") in Union Water-Meter Company v. Henry A. Desper. Because he is an individual rather than a registered enterprise, ownership status, size, and revenue are not applicable; no public source supports any figure.
Products / operations. The only operational fact traceable to the sources is that Desper manufactured water meters built according to his own 1873 patent. The court described the accused device as having a rotary valve without bevel gear, two cylinders set at right angles, double-acting pistons joined by a piston-rod, fixed (non-adjustable) Ericsson-type stops inside the cylinder heads, and — critically — no crank-shaft or gearing, the valve instead being driven by a single crank keyed directly to its stem. He is best characterized as an independent inventor-manufacturer, not an NPE and not a large operating company.
Litigation posture. The structured data show one tracked case, as defendant, and zero as plaintiff — the signature of a party that was sued rather than a serial filer. The suit was a conventional 19th-century infringement action (bill in equity for injunction, profits, and damages), not patent-assertion-entity activity. Both venues listed (District of Massachusetts; U.S. Supreme Court) reflect appeal from the same case.
Notable case. Water-Meter Co. v. Desper, 101 U.S. 332 (1879, decided by the October 1879 Term; reported 1880), Justice Bradley writing. The patent at issue was reissue No. 5806 of Ball & Fitts' original No. 109,372 (1870) for liquid meters. The Court held the combination claim was not infringed because the defendants omitted the crank-shaft and its gearing, a material element for which no equivalent was supplied. The decree of the Circuit Court was affirmed — a defense win for Desper.
Sources: Justia, Water Meter Co. v. Desper, 101 U.S. 332; Library of Congress U.S. Reports Vol. 101; Smithsonian NMAH record on the Union Water Meter Company (Worcester, Mass.).
Union Water-Meter Company, assignee of the reissue of US 109,372, sued Henry A. Desper for infringement of Reissue No. 5,806 in the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Massachusetts. The Supreme Court affirmed judgment for Desper, holding no infringement because the accused meters omitted the adjusting-stops element of Claim 4 of the reissue.