90
FEDERAL REPORTER.
liheric pressure off the pipe leading into the reservoir, and allows the water to be forced, by the weight of the atmosphere, into the pipes of the injector or lifter to the extent to which the atmospheric pressure will accomplish this purpose. It had been, long before this patentee entered the field, demonstrated and become a part of the common mechanical knowledge of those versed in the art that, to make a lifter of this instrument, the area of the combining tube at its smallest diameter must be greater than the area of the steam-jet which is to expel the air from the combining tube to cause a flow of water into the same; while, in order to impart to the stream an increased momentum or velocity, so as to make the instrument a forcer, the area of the steam-jet must exceed the area of the combining tube at its smallest diameter. In other words, if the combining tube of the lifter is made smaller than the area of the steam-jet, the steam cannot escape through the combining tube, but will recoil, and hinder, if it does .not wholly prevent, the flow of water into and through the combining tube; while the current thr.ough the latter being established by the lifter, the volume of steam from the forcing jet must then be made large enough to impart its velocity to the current of water in the combining tube, so as to send the water with increased momentum into the boiler. Another characteristic of all these devices, known before the invention of this patentee, was the fact that, in order to make the instrument operative, there must be an opening somewhere beyond the end of the combining tube, through which the air to be expelled therefrom, and the steam and water first admitted, could pass, in order, as it was commonly expressed, to prime the instrument, and get sufficient head or velocity upon it to enable it to act against and overcome the pressure of the boiler, and drive the water into it. In the English patent Giffard showed by the second drawing a device by which the jet or stream of water, which had been sent into and through the combining tube by the action of the lifter, received another jet of steam, giving it the increased impetus necessary to drive the water into the boiler; these tubes of Giffard being arranged in an axial line to each other,-that is, the second tube, upon which the forcing jet of steam is applied, is directly in the line of the combining tube, which receives the jet of steam, and causes the water to be lifted. In the first form of the Giffard injector the instrument is so constrncted that the jet of steam first applied is smaller than the area of the combining tube, and hence, in its first operation, the instrument is a lifter; but after the air has been expelled, and the instrnment become primed, and a flow of water established through the combining tube by the operation of the instrument as a lifter, the area of the steam-jet is enlarged so that from that time forward the instrument operlttes as a forcer; that is, the original simple Giffard injector in its first form, as shown in his French and English patents, was a combined lifter and injector. He says:
HANCOCK INSPIRATOR CO. V. LALLY.
91
"This apparatus, which may be considerably modified without changing the principle of its action, consists, according to one arrangement, as applied to a. steam-boiler, of a steam-jet or injection pipe, which receives steam from the boiler, and directs it in a continuous jet into a small passage, the lower end or mouth of which is expanded sufficiently to admit of the entrance of a stream of water which, by surrounding the steam-jet. pipe, forms an annular jet of water, with the steam-jet in the center; * * or two steam and water jets may be used in such cases, such as where the condensation of the steam is not sufficiently rapid, owing to the heated state of the water in the hot well or tank of the engine. * * * In case the initial temperature of the water in the well or reservoir (or tender, when applied to locomotive en. gines) should be too high, which cannot always be avoided, to condense the entire quantity of steam issuing from the nozzle it would be requisite to divide the actuating steam-jet into two parts, as shown in Fig. 2; the first portion acting as above described, drawing up the water, and imparting to it only a fraction of the necessary speed; and the second portion, arriving by the pipe, t, and having its annular sectional form regulated by the screw, W, would impart to the vein or jet a fresh impulse in the diverging mouth-piece, to any point where the ejected water would still possess a portion of the pressure of the boiler. Now, with this portion of the pressure above the pressure ot the atmosphere, the water could condense the fresh amount of steam, which would then no longer act except with the difference of the total pressure already acquired, and would thus be introduced into the boiler under the most favorable conditions. This principle may be modified and worked out in various ways."
*
It will thus be seen that Giffard, in his original patent, suggested and showed the application of a second jet of steam, to act as a forcer upon the column of water which had been raised by the action of the lifting portion of the device. In the English patent of Barclay and Morton, issued in November, 1863, an injector or "lifter" is shown, of which they say: "It may be necessary to combine two of the before-mentioned apparatuses, so that the one may merely raise or lift the water or the other fluids, while the other then merely forces it; and also, one lifting apparatus may be combined with that known as · Giffard's Injector,' and by this means supply water to steam-boilers from any depth where an ordinary lift-pump is required."
Without traveling through the large volume of testimony in the record in this case, it is enough to say the proof shows that when Hancock entered the field lifters were old, and forcers were old; that is, Giffard ahowed a forcer working in connection with his lifter, and also that his simple lifters were transformed, when they had once got into operation as lifters, into forcers. It seems to me that all that Hancock did was to take the forcer, which Giffard had arranged in a direct line with the tubes of hiB (Giffard's) lifter, and arrange or set this forcer along-side of the lifter, instead of allowing it to extend beyond, in the same line with the lifti,ng pipe; and, when thus arranged, the forcer of Hancock perf01 med the same function that was performed by the injector of Giffard after the lifter had flet the column of water flowing into and through the tubes, when, the steam-jet being increased, the instrument became from that time a forcer. No uew function is performed by either instrument in the change of position,
92
but the two continue to do, in the Hancock combination, just what they had done in the Giffard combination, and just what Barclay and Morton suggested they might be made to do in their device. It is also noticeable that while the proof shows that the law of the operation of this device as a lifter and a forcer was well known at the time Hancock entered the field, yet nowhere in the specifications of his patent does he give any directions for constructing one. half as a lifter, and the other as a forcer. He does not state the proportions of the two pipes, and how one shall be constructed in order to operate as a lifter, and how the other shall be constructed to operate as a forcer. It may be true, and it probably is, that the art of constructing this class of instruments was so well lmown at this time that it was sufficient to say to a person skilled in their construction that one side should be constructed to force, and the other only to lift, and the skill and experience of the workmen would supply what was left out of the specifications as to the proportions of the two instruments. 'l'his view, and this alone, saves the patent, so far as this third claim is concerned, from being absolutely void for uncertainty, because he does not instruct the public how to make lifters, nor how to make forcers; and if the rules for constructing these dif. ferent instruments were not then well known, then the instruments cannot be made and combined. In other words, he seems to have assumed that the difference between a lifter and forcer was part of the common knowledge of those skilled in the art of making injectors. Much of the contention between the experts in the case centers around the question whether an instrument constructed according to the second form shown in the French and English patents will work as a practical combined lifter and forcer, and feed or supply a boiler with water under varied pressure. Witnesses in behalf of complainant testify to experiments made by them with such an instrument with which they wholly failed to do the work; while witnesses for defendant testify to the successful use of injectors made in strict conformity with the drawings of these foreign patents. Of course, if the Giffard device, or a machine made according to his drawing, will not work, or was not a practical and useful machine, operating substan· tially upon the principle shown in the B;ancock, then the Giffard device should not be deemed an anticipation of Hancock's: .but I am satisfied from a careful study of the proof that an injector made after the plans of Giffard's Fig. 2 is and will be a practical working injector, lifting the water, and forcing it as successfully as an instrument constructed under the direction of the Hancock patent, and hence I conclude that the Giffard patents show a practical and successful mode of combining a lifter and forcer which produces the same result as the Hancock, and differs from it only in the juxtaposition or location of the operative parts. The defendant sells an injector manufactured by James Jenks, of Detroit, in which he also has arranged the forcer and the lifter side
BLADES "'. RAND, M'NALI.Y & CO.
by side, instead of placing them in an axial line to each other. Forcers being old and lifters being old in the art, and the Giffard patents, and several of the other earlier patented improvements upon Giffardts device, having expired, any person had the right to take the injector and the lifter, as shown in Giffard's device, and arrange them, either as he arranged them, the one following the other, or side by side, the way Hancock has arranged them. No such special advantage is shown to have accrued by the arrangement of the two devices side by side as to make that arrangement of itself patentable. The instruments still operate by the same law, and in the same manner, when the two are along-side of each other as they did when the forcer was ahead of and in the line of the lifter. I therefore conclude that, so far as the Hancock patent is concerned, he had no right, at the time he took his patent, to cover broadly the combination, which he does by the third claim of his patent, of an injector for forcing water into a boiler and a second injector communicating with the well, and communicating with and supplying water to the first, because Giffard and Barclay and Morton bad instructed the public how to do this long before the date of his invention, by the use of substantially the same operative parts. The bill is therefore dismissed for want of equity.
BLADES
v.
RAND, McNALLY
& Co. 1
«(Jircuit (Jourt, N.
n. illinois.
March 22, 1886.)
1.
PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS-TICKET CASES.
Letters patent No. 86,277, of January 26,1869, to Frank Brewster, and No. 145,388, of December 9, 1873, to Leonard J. Blades. construed, and !teld limited to the special devices which they describe and claim, and not infringed. These two patents cannot support or supplement each other. They are each for combinations, and the question is whether the defendants use the combination shown in each, and not whether parts in each combination can be found in each patent.
2.
SAME-PATENTS CANNOT SUPPLEMENT EACH OTHER.
8.
SAME-ACQUIESCENCE IN REJECTION OF ApPLICATION-EFFECT OF.
Where a patentee, having made broad claims in his application, which were rejected, accepted claims for a combination of the parts shown. he must be limited to his specific device. The action of an applicant for a patent in accepting restricted claims is part of the law of the patent, and controls the assignee as well as the original patentee. Although the broad claims of this application were rejected on a reference to a rejected application, in accordance with the then practice of the patent office, which practice was soon afterwards overruled by the supreme court, held, that the applicant having acquiesced and taken a limited claim must now be confined to the claim he accepted.
4.
SAME-AsSIGNEE BOUND BY ApPLICANT'S ACTIONS.
5
SAME-REFERENCE TO REJECTED ApPLICATION.
1 Reported
by Charles C. Linthicum, Esq., of the Chicago bar·
·
FEDERAL BEl'ORTER.
In Equity. Offield If Towle, for complainant. Gridley tX Fletcher, for defendants. BLODGETT, J. This suit is brought to restrain the alleged infringement of patent No. 86,277, granted January 26, 1869, to Frank Brewster. for "an improvement in railroad ticket cases," and patent No. 145,388, granted December 9, 1873, to Leonard J. Blades, for "an improvement in ticket cases," and for an accounting. The Brewster patent is for a case containing any desired number of ticket drawers, or pigeon-holes, for holding the tickets for the reo quisite number of stations; these drawers being so constructed that each is complete in itself, and easily taken from or replaced in the case. The rear ends of these drawers are raised so as to incline the drawer towards the front of the case, and the tickets are placed in the drawer, either upon the end or edge, so as to present the face of the ticket to the front of the case. In the front end of the side pieces of these drawers are narrow strips of metal, or other suitable material, against which the ends or edges of the tickets rest, so as to keep them in place, and at the same time allow the face of the front ticket to be plainly seen from the front of the case. The upper ends of these strips are also bent over on the upper edge of the drawer, and a small slot cut in the angle only wide enough to allow the withdrawal of a single ticket at one time; and this withdrawal must be by pushing the ticket upwards instead of downwards. Behind the tickets is a follower, arranged with a rod and spring, so as to keep the tickets in the drawer pressed firmly against the front strips. The object in setting these drawers at an incline is stated to be to give room for the drawing of the tickets over the tops of the drawers. The patentee disclaims the older devices "for the prevention of the withdrawal of more than one ticket at once. where the tickets nresent an end-edge front, and are withdrawn from the bottom." The patent contains but one claim, which is : "The combination of the drawer, c, having upon its front edges the metallic strips,j, slotted as described; the rod, i, having attached thereto a follower for pressing forward the tickets, and the springs, j, j, all constructed and arranged and operating substantially as set forth." As to the Blades patent, it is stated in the 'specifications that the invention is for an in the class of railway ticket holders in which the slides or drawers are provided with spring-guided followers for pressing the tickets forward into position to be seized and drawn out. He says: "I employ a follower actuated by gravity, thereby economiZing space, and securing other advantages, and so construct and arrange the slides and their containing case that the tickets may be drawn downwards, and then out of the slide compartments, and the slides themselves also drawn forward and suspended in a vertical position for refilling with tickets, as will be hereafter more fully described."