204 HOE
FEDERAL REPORTER.
and others v.
KNAP
and others.t March 22. 1886.)
(Circuit Court, N. 1.
n. Illinois.
PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS-PRINTING-l\fACffiNES.
Letters patent No. 269,159, of December 12, 1882, to Luther C. Crowell. for a sheet-delivering mechanism for printing-machines, construed, sustained as to the sixth claim, and held infringed.
So far as appeared from the proof in this case, Crowell was the first to superimpose the sheets, as they follow each other from a web printing-press, by causing them to travel in different pathways of equal lengths, and to stop or retard the advance sheet until the following sheet or sheets is or are brought abreast of it, when they move at a common rate of speed to a point where they come together; and he is therefore entitled to protection against the use of equivalents by others. 3. SAME-RwIIARD M. HOE PATENT, No. 211,848, FEBRUARY 4, 1879, FOLDINGInfringement was charged of the fifth claim of this patent, which was for "the combination of brake-arms, rest-blocks, and supporting carrying-tapes, substantially as described." Held, the tre construction of this claim required that the folding blade or rollers, described by the patent, be read into this claim, and that under this construction the defendants did not infringe. MACffiNES.
2. SAME.
4.
SAME.
The defendants did not use the stoppmg or retarding device of the patent for the purpose it described, and they had the same right as patentee to take another "element from the older art, and use it in combination with the elements he described, for another purpose, in their machines.
5.
SAME-VOID REISSUE.
The first claim cf the Hoe & Tucker patent (reissue No. 8,801, of July 15, 187;)) printing-machines is void because an unwarranted enlargement of the patent, which was granted December 1, 1868, and of the tirst reissue, WhICh was granted May 30, 1871. The second claim of the original of the Hoe & Tucker reissue sued on, and the corresponding claim of the first reissue, included the flies or piling mechanism described; but the first claim of the rebsue sued on does not, and it is therefore void. In view of the prior state of the art, the court doubted whether this patent was not void for want of patentable novelty. Where the owner of a patent had never made, used, or sold to others to be used, the invention covered by the patent, an injunction, in the interlocutory decree, against its use by an infringer was refused. on his giving bond to secure any damages which might be awarded on final hearing. " A patentee is bound either to use the patent himself, or allow others to use it on reasonable and equitable terms.
6.
SAMR
7. SAME-PATENTAlHLITY.
8.
SAME-PRACTICE-INJUNCTION.
9. SAME-PATENTEE MUST USE OR ELSE PERlin'!' OTHERS TO USE.
In Equity. Offield &: Towle and Munson tl Philipp, for complainants, (B. F. Thu1'ston, of counsel.) West &: Bond, for defendants. BLODGETT, J. Complainants, by this bill, seek an injunction and accounting for the alleged infringement by defendants of three patents I
Edited by Charles C. Linthicum, Esq., of the Chicago bar.
HOE 11. KNAP.
265
owned by complainants; the first being patent No. 269,159, granted December 12, 1882, to Luther C. Crowell, for "a sheet delivering mechanism for printing-machines;" the second being patent No. 211,848, granted t'o Richard M. Hoe, on February 4, 1879, for "an improvement in paper-folding machines;" and the third being reissued patent No. 8,801, granted to complainants as assignees of Richard M. Hoe and Stephen D. Tucker, July 15, 1879, for an "improvement in printing-machines;" the original patent having been granted December 1, 1868. All these patents, it is averred in the bill, have been duly assigned to complainants, and no question is made as to the title to either patent. 1' he Crowell patent is for a device whereby the sheets issuing successively from a web printing mechanism are brought together so that one may overlie the other. In modern newspaper printing it hl found desirable to make a paper of eight or more pages, and as the sheets of four pages each pass successively from the printing rollers the problem is to cause one or more of the sheets following the first to overtake and be laid upon the first, so tha· when they reach the folding mechanism they will be folded together as one product. In the specification it is said: "The invention consists, broadly, in causing the rear sheet or sheets, during some portion of its or their travel through the delivery mechanism, to move at a greater speed than the advance sheet, so that the sheets shall be caused to overlap each other, and eventually be imposed upon one another in Droper register."
This inventor was not the first who superposed one sheet upon another before they reached the folder, as prior inventors had accomplished the same result, one device being such an arrangement of tapes and rollers as to cause the first sheet to travel by a longer pathway. while the following sheet took a short pathway, and overtook the thst at the point where the respective pathways came together. An. {lther device caused the first sheet to be stopped and held upon a cylinder until one or more following sheets had been brought up and placed upon the first, when the cylinder rolled forward and delivered the sheets one upon the top of the other. The distinguishing feature of the Crowell device is that the sheets are conducted by pathways of and that after the first sheet has passed into its separate pathway, it is either held stationary, or its motion retarded, until the following sheet has got abreast of it in its own pathway, when the holding or retarding device releases the first sheet and they move Dn together to the point where their pathways unite, when the second sheet is brought on the top of or superposed upon the first sheet, from whence they proceed to the folder, where they are folded together into a paper of eight pages or more, according to the number of sheets brought together. The elements of this device are two or more path. ways of equal length, formed of tapes and rollers properly arranged for that purpose; a switch located at the entrance to these pathways,
206
automatically operated, so as to direct the first sheet in the pathway where it is to be detained or retarded, and the following sheet, when but two are to be brought together into the pathway, where it will run without obstruction; and a retarding device which consists of two rollers with portions of their surfaces cut away, so arranged that as the first sheet passes between them it will be held still, or its motion slowed, until the following sheet in the other pathway arrives abreast of it, when the first sheet is released, and the two move at a common speed to a point where the pathways unite. The patent contains seven claims, but infringement is charged only as to the sixth, which is as follows: "The combination with a series of pathways of equal lengths, of means for guiding the successive sheets into different pathways, and means for retarding the speed of the advance sheet until the following sheet is abreast thereof, substantially as described."
The defenses as to this patent are (1) that the patent is void for want of novelty; (2) that Crowell is limited by the prior art to the special devices shown in his patent, and the defendants do not use these devises; (3) that defendants do not infringe. As to the first defense, I think the only conclusion from the proof in the record is that Crowell was the first to superpose the sheets as they follow each other from a web printing-press by causing them to travel in different pathways of equal lengths, and stop or retard the advance sheet until the following sheet or sheets is or are brought abreast of it, and they then move at a common rate of speed to a point where they come toge,ther. Other machines had carried sheets in pathways of unequal length, whereby the advance sheet, traveling by a longer route, reached the point where the two pathways met at the same time with the following sheet, which took a short road, whereby one was laid upon the other; but none had accomplished the work of superimposition by sending the sheets which were to be laid together on patllways of equal lengths, before Crowell's invention. It is true that machines older than Crowell's device, and used for various purposes connected with the work of printing and delivering printed sheets, directed the sheets in different channels or pathways by means of switches, and the record also shows older devices for slowing or stopping the movement of sheets; but none of them show an organization of parts like Crowell's to do the work of superposing by the same means, and I think there can be no doubt that it required inventive genius to so arrange these parts as to perform the desired work, at the time Crowell entered the field. After he had produced his combination of co-acting parts, it may be very easy to find all these parts or elements separate in the older art, and, perhaps, doing in some older machines jnst what each separate element of Crowell's combination does in his machinlil,-that is, switches directing the sheets alternately into different pathways, and brakes or brake-rollers holding back or retarding the movement of a sheet in
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pathway; because Crowell did not invent switches nor patLways for sheets, formed by rollers and tapes, nor retarding devices, but he brought them together to co-operate in producing a result which had not been produced before by the same elements; and it is no answer to his claim as an inventor to say that the same result had been produced before by some of the elements of his combination: acting with others, but in a substantially different way. The two parts of the second point of defense may well be considered together. Defendants contend that their machines do not contain two pathways. and hence that they do not infringe. Their machine shows an organization of parts whereby the sheets, as they leave the common pathway which brings them from the printing rollers, are directed, by the operation of what is called a "dividing finger," alternately "over and under" a small roller and plate or bar. This roller and bar keep the upper tapes lifted from the lower, and aid the tapes in carrying the sheets over the roller and bar, and as the roller does not quite touch the lower tapes, it does not interfe,re with or retard the sheets passing under it. A rock-shaft is provided with fingers, which are made to fit against the bar or plate to hold the rear end of tae advance sheets until the following sheet has caught up with it, and at this point to release the detained sheet, and allow the two to move on together. This description is given by one of the defendants, Mr. Kahler, of the construction and mode of operation of defendants' machine. What he calls the "dividing fingers," which are located at the entrance to this pathway, are nothing more nor less than a switch substantially identical in its structure and operation with Crowell's switch, "16." Its function is to "direct the advancing sheets over and under the roller and plate or bar." This' roll.l3r divides Mr. Kahler's pathway into two pathways; the sheets which go over the roller and bar take one pathway, and those which go under the roller and bar take the other pathway. It is true the pathways are closer together than those shown in Crowell's arrangement, and are formed with a less number of tapes and rollers, but they are separate ways, nevertheless, and are intended to and do enable the following sheet to come alung-side of or nbreast of the advance sheet, which must be done by one sheet being deflected into a different pathway from that taken by the other. The diameter of the roller and bar measures the distance between those pathways; one sheet goes over and the other .under the roller. When the tailor rear end of the ad vance sheet reaches the bar or plate it is caught between the fingers of the rock·shaft and the plate, and held there until the following sheet has passed under the roller to a point directly underneath the first, when the first sheet is reo leased, and the two proceed together. their paths uniting immediately beyond the bar which has separated them. The rock-sbaft, with its fingers arranged to be brought down upon the bar or plates, so as to catch the advance sheet and hold it until the following sheet over-
208
takes it, is, as appears by the proof, a known equivalent for the cutaway rollers used in the Crowell patent. Indeed, a rock-shaft with fingers is but a roller with all of its periphery cut away except the fingers; and there can be no doubt that the defendants' rock-shaft does in the defendants' machine just what is done by the cutaway rollers of the Crowell machine, and no more. So, too, the roller which divides the pathway of the two sheets, and over and under which the switch directs the sheets as they reach it, is an adjunct to, and forms a part of, the pathway in place of some of the tapes shown in the Crowell machine; but this does not make any substantial difference, because a roller for that purpose only takes the place of other devices shown by Crowell. It therefore seems to me that the de· fendants' machine embodies the entire elements of i;he Crowell de· vice,-the switch, the two pathways of equal lengths. and the mechanism for detaining the advance sheet until the following sheet in its own separate pathway has been brought along.side or abreast of it,and these respective elements. perform the same function and no other in the defendants' machine that are performed by the cor· responding elements in the Crowell device. It therefore seems to me that the allegation of infringement is fully sustained by the defend. ants' own description of the structure and mode of operation of their machine, nor do I find, in a large mass of prior patents and devices shown in the record, any device or combination which should limit the Crowell patent to the special devices shown therein; that is, that he must be confined to just such a switch, and just such a detaining device, as he shows, and is not protected against known equivalents for tho'36 parts. On the contrary, I conclude, as I have already said, that he was the first to combine these elements and produce the given result, and is therefore entitled to protection against the use of equivalents by others. 'l'his being a combination of old devices for the purpose of producing a given result, we must look from the claim back into the description of the patent as found in the specification and drawings for the elements of the combination which produce the result, and a reference to this description shows clearly the elements for guiding the successive sheets into different pathways, and the means for retarding the advance sheets which the inventor intended to employ, and also several variations to produce modified results. In other words, what is covered ·by the claim is made entirely clear by the specifications and drawings, and this claim of the patent is amply sufficient, under the rule laid down in Silsby v. Poote. 14 How. 218, and Fay v. Cordesma.n, 109 U. S. 408, S. C. 3 Sup. Ct. Rep. 236. It is urged, however, that the claim as stated does not cover the reo sult,-that is, the superposing of one sheet upon another,-as it leaves the sheets to go where they may after the second has been brought along-side of the first. But it seems to me a sufficient answer to this part of the argument to say that both the Crowell and the defendants'
HOE t1. KNU.
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machines are organized for the same purpose,-to bring the sbeets abreast of each other for the purpose of being superposed. If defendan ts, after bringing their sheets together, did not superpose them, and did not bring them abreast of each other for that purpose, but for Borne other purpose, and sent them off in different ways, there might be much more force for the defendants in this branch of the argument; but they do what Crowell does, and for the same purpose, and, as I am compelled to find, with his identical means. The Hoe patent, No. 2L1,848, is for a "folding-machine." The inventor says: " My invention relates to folding-machines, supplied at a high rate of speed with sheets to be folded, and particularly to that class of folding-machines adapted to work in conjunction with a perfected printing-press, which prints from a web of paper, cuts it into sheets of proper size, and them as rapidly as cut and printed. Where these sheets pass directly into a foldingmachine, they move with such velocity that great difficulty is experienced in arresting them in such relation to the folding mechanism as to be foldel! aecurately, upon a given line, without buckling. The object of my invention is to overcome this diflicnlty, and it consists in sheet-controlling mechanism by which the movement of the sheet with respect to the folding mechanism is so governed as to secure its position in relation to the folding mechanism at the time when said folding mechanism operates to double it, as will be more fully heJeinafter described and claimed."
He then describes a rest-block placed just over the tapes under which the sheet passes, located directly over the folding rollers, and the rock-shaft with brake-arms, and the vibrating fingers attached, arranged 80 as to be brought to bear against the rest-blocks by a movement of the shaft; and as the sheet is brought rapidly under the tapes it is caught at the rear end by the action of the rock-shaft between· the brake-arms and tbe rest-blocks, and its progress either retarded or wholly stopped, wherehy the bucklini{ or wrinkling of the sheet by bringing its forward end at a high rate of speed against the stop is preven ted. The defendants are charged with infr"nging the fifth claim of this patent, which is as follows: (5) The combination of brake-arms, restblocks, and supporting carrying-tapes, substantially as described. Without taking time to analyze ard discuss the large amount of tel3timony. both of experts and as to the prior art, which has been put into the record, I am of opinion that the true construction 6f this claim requires that the brake-arms. rest-plates, and carrying-tapes are to co-operate with the folding-blades or rollers. In other words, that the folding-blades and rollers are to be read into the claim; and under this construction the defendants do not infringe, as the only place whore they stop or retain their sheets is in the double pathway. for the purpose of superimposition. This stopping or retarding device in this patent is not used by defendants in tbeir machine for the same purpose as used by Hoe in his patent; and aEl stopping or slowing devices by means of brake-arms and rest-blocks, and by nipping v.27F.no.2-14