Akimoff v. Dynamic Balancing Mach. Co.

285 F. 480, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 1986
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedDecember 15, 1922
DocketNos. 2863 and 2902
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 285 F. 480 (Akimoff v. Dynamic Balancing Mach. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Akimoff v. Dynamic Balancing Mach. Co., 285 F. 480, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 1986 (3d Cir. 1922).

Opinion

No. 2863.

BUFFINGTON, Circuit Judge.

[1] This is an appeal from that part of the decree of the District Court holding claims 12 and 13 of [481]*481letters patent No. 1,296,610, valid and infringed. The patent concerns machines for ascertaining the static or standing and the dynamic or running unbalance of rolls and other revolvable appliances.

Taking, for illustration, a roll: It may have two kinds of unbalance. If there is a superabundance of material in any part of its circumferential plane, the roll will not stánd when, placed, but will turn over until the heavier part forces it to rest at the lowest level. This is called static or standing unbalance, and it is clear that, if a roll thus statically unbalanced is revolved at high speed, such unbalance will evidence itself detrimentally. There is also what is 'called dynamic or running unbalance. This is where a roll which will stand in whatever position it is placed, and therefore has no static or standing unbalance, may, when revolved at high speed, wobble in its bearings by reason of dynamic or running unbalance. This unbalance is caused by there being a superabundance of metal at one side of the longitudinal center of the roll. For it is clear that, if a roll heavier at one end than at the other is rewlved at high speed, there will be a heavy, needless and highly objectionable strain on the roll bearings.

[2] Now the purpose and the accomplishment of both the plaintiffs’ and the defendants’ machines is to locate in rolls and other revolvable bodies these two objectionable factors of dynamic and static unbalance, and the question here involved is whether plaintiffs and defendants secure that result by substantially the same means and methods, for the law is clear that mere identity of result is not the test of infringement, but substantial identity of means and method.

Addressing ourselves then to the patent in controversy and using figure 1 thereof and attached hereto as illustrative of plaintiffs’ disclo-

sure, we have a composite testing machine in which there is a bed, 3, which is called in the specification, an oscillator, secured at one end to the supporting b.ed by the hinge, %, and supported at its other end by the compression spring, 5. On the bed of the machine is located — 36, [482]*48238, 39 — a balancing unit consisting of a spool or weight adapted to be shifted off center to counteract the static or dynamic unbalance for which the body is being tested in either of two positions of test which are at right angles to each and come about in this way. On such oscillator there is a turntable adapted to carry the roll or body under test, and so arranged that the axis of' rotation of the body under test may be shifted so as to "make it revolvable in a plane either parallel with, or perpendicular to, the axis of the balancing unit above referred to.

Without going into details, we may say the operation of this machine and the sequence of workings necessary to mechanically remove the objectionable metal of the roll, etc., are correctly summarized by the witness Stuart, professor of mechanical engineering at the Naval Testing School at Annapolis, as follows:

“The machine is operated, certain adjustments are made in the machine, and the static unbalance is determined by certain readings from a dial. The static balance is determined by the readings, and must then be corrected in the body. Q. This body is taken out of the machine? A. The body must be removed from the machine; the static unbalance must be corrected. The i)ody must be placed bach in the maclvime; the machine operated: certain other adjustments made; the dynamic unbalance determined; the body taken out of the machine; and the dynamic unbalance corrected.”

And that this was the extent of the disclosure of the patent is evidenced by the specification which says:

“The object of the invention, as reduced to practice in the specific manner hereby disclosed is to provide a mechanism operative to perfectly balance a rotatable body statically while revolving; to indicate the degree of lack of balance inherent within said body, and the location and amount of material necessary to be removed therefrom, or added thereto; to provide a mechanism capable of being quickly and easily transformed into a machine operative to perfectly balance a rotatable body dynamically while revolving; to provide a dynamic balancing machine operative to indicate the degree of such balance, and the location and amount of material necessary to be removed therefrom or added thereto; to provide in such a universal machine a balancing unit comprising a radially movable weight, operative to revolve in synchronism with the body being tested, adjustable into different angular positions with respect to said body, rotatable upon an axis parallel with the axis of said body when arranged for dynamic balancing and upon an axis in a plane perpendicular to the axis of said body when arranged for static balancing, and vibratable upon and with an oscillator forming a common support both for said unit and said body; and to provide further details of construction and operation as hereinafter described.”

It will thus be seen that the plaintiffs’ means and method show a composite, complete, workable machine adapted in one operation to locate static unbalance, necessitating thereafter a removal of the body to correct this ascertained static unbalance; then a return of the body to the machine where dynamic unbalance is located when the body is revolved at another angle.

Now this same final result is obtained by the defendant’s mechanism, but its means and methods differ. In the first place, the defendants have no machine, as such, complete and in itself capable of operation, for the roll or body being, tested is itself required to -function and operate, in order to make the device work as a mechanical whole. In other words, we have the unusual situation of the body which is being [483]*483tested, being an absolutely necessary element to the mechanical action of the testing device. Referring to the sketch attached hereto, it will be

seen that 1 and 1 are respectively independent and unconnected pedestals, one of which is adapted to allow its load to oscillate; the other not. On each pedestal are rollers adapted to carry an end, 8, of the superimposed roll, 7, and facilitate its rotation by the motor and belt, 14, 15, which is in engagement only with the nonoscillating end of the roll. To the axle of the roll is attached, 11, IB, 13, the clamp provided with weights which may be shifted radially.

The operation of the machine and the points wherein it differs from the plaintiffs’ is, in our judgment, properly summarized by the witness Stuart, already quoted, who says:

“The essential difference of the two machines is that this máehine (plaintiffs’) can determine separately the static imbalance; the body must be taken from the machine; the static unbalance must be corrected; the body put back in the machine; the dynamic unbalance determined and corrected separately. The defendants’ machine provides for a determination at the same time of both static and dynamic unbalance, if you want to make such a division, although this machine, ichen operating, the defendants’ machine, does not distinguish ~hei*ween static and dynamic mibalance.

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Bluebook (online)
285 F. 480, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 1986, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/akimoff-v-dynamic-balancing-mach-co-ca3-1922.