Spill's later years were largely occupied in a long legal battle in America with John Wesley Hyatt and the Celluloid Manufacturing Company for infringement of his patents.
John Wesley Hyatt was a printer by trade and a prolific inventor who secured over 250 patents, the first being issued in 1861 for a knife grinder.
In 1895 he hired Alfred P. Sloan, son of a major investor in the company, as a draftsman.
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