Asbestos Shingle, Slate & Sheathing Co. v. H. W. Johns-Manville Co.

184 F. 620, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 5709
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York
DecidedDecember 3, 1910
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 184 F. 620 (Asbestos Shingle, Slate & Sheathing Co. v. H. W. Johns-Manville Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Asbestos Shingle, Slate & Sheathing Co. v. H. W. Johns-Manville Co., 184 F. 620, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 5709 (circtsdny 1910).

Opinion

HAND, District Judge.

This case comes up on final hearing upon the ordinary bill in equity for infringement of the complainant’s reissue patent No. 12,594, covering a certain invention, process, and product, relating to artificial stone plates. The process consists of mixing together, in a great bulk of water, hydraulic cement and asbestos fiber, or other fibrous material. By sufficient agitation continued for some time the cement takes on a peculiar condition termed in the patent “colloidal,” about the exact molecular structure of which the highest scientific authorities differ. It is conceded that, whatever be the correct analysis of the change physically speaking (there being thought to be no atomic change), its gross aspects include a swelling in bulk to a noticeable extent. It is further agreed that the “setting” [622]*622of the "cement is markedly delayed, and, indeed, if the agitation in a great bulk of water be continued for three hours, the defendant’s expert, Norton, believes the result will be wholly to destroy its “setting” power.

After the asbestos fiber and cement have been thoroughly mixed in a great bulk of water, the mixture is poured into the receiving vat of a cardboard machine. Within this vat is a wheel upon the circumference of which is a fine wire gauze. The vat is drained from the inside of .the wheel in such way that the thin paste to escape must pass through the wire mesh. The cylinder is revolved, and to the outer side of it, as it rises, clings the solid portion of the paste. At the top of its revolution, the cylinder comes in contact with a felt belting which takes off the paste and carries it forward, drying it on the way, until it comes in contact with a “coucher” roll, having itself a wire gauze upon the circumference, which takes the paste from the felt belting onto itself. Each revolution of the coucher roll adds a layer of paste to its periphery and so builds up a plate of increasing thickness. When the proper thickness is obtained, the paste is slit longitudinally on the coucher roll, taken off, pressed under high pressures, and removed to suitable rooms, where it is cured. The process of curing practiced b'y the defendant extends over considerable time, and its perfection has been the subject of some experiment, the details of which will appear later, but which do not appear in the patent in suit.

The first patent was taken out on August 30, 1904, and a reissue on January 15, 1901'. The reissue was applied for on August 20, 1906 —therefore within two years of the original patent. The specifications of the reissue are substantially the same.as those of the original patent, except that on pages 2 and 3 of the reissue there are added, page 2, lines 30-130, and page 3, lines 1 — 15. These do not add to the. description of the process, but do add statements about the character of the product. The original claims were two in number, corresponding verbatim to claims 2 and 3 of the reissue. The reissue claims 4 and 5 are substantially similar to claims 2 and 3. Claims 6 and 7 are • for the product of the invention, and claim 1 is of a different and wider character, which it .will not be necessary to consider for the determination of this controversjc

The proportions of the mixture are nowhere stated definitely. On page 1, lines 78-82, occur the words:

“In such a way it is possible to produce an article which contains 80 to 90 per cent, of cement to 20- to 30 per cent, of fibrous material.”

And in the example.. given of the mixture specific proportions are used in the relation of five parts by weight of cement to one part of asbestos to the dry mixture, and there is added five or six times in amount of water. In speaking of the product on page 2, lines 70-74, the patentee, in speaking of the difference of his own product from that of others, says that his own product is different from that of others “because of its composition, containing within the limits heretofore stated, say 85 per cent, of hydraulic cement and 15 per cent, of asbestos.”

[623]*623The defendant after January 15, 1907, and for a period which does not definitely appear, used the process of manufacture exactly as disclosed, except that, in place of the ordinary cardboard machine, mentioned in the patent, it used a machine patented under the Sillman patent, No. 829,770. In this machine the mixture was made to-flow through a trough and under a roller directly upon the felt without the interposition of the rolling cylinder of the ordinary cardboard machine. The only difference which this produced in the substance was as follows: In the patentee’s process, when the paste first flows upon the wire gauze of the revolving wheel, the cement, being more finely divided than the fiber, flows through with the water until the agglomeration of asbestos libers upon the g-auze is fine enough to hold the cement, the result being that each layer which is taken off on the felt is not of strictly homogeneous character, one side of it having more fibers and less cement than the other. 'I'liis fact is mentioned in the reissue patent, page 2, lines 80-105. When made by the Sillman machine, the layers are necessarily homogeneous, as they have not been strained through any gauze. The defendant, by virtue of this difference, makes some question of infringement; but I do not think that it is of any importance. Although the Sillman machine is not strictly a cardboard machine and may well be an improvement upon the applicant’s method, it is to my mind very clearly the equivalent of that method, and produces substantially the same product in precisely the same way. The only difference is in the way in which the paste is carried to the belt. That is a step in the process which has no pregnant significance under the patent itself. The process continues in precisely the same way, and the product is built up in layers just as in the patent in suit. If the patent required limitation through the prior art, the question might be more serious; but, as 1 shall show, I cannot find anything in the art which requires such limitation.

The third claim is as follows:

“Tlie herein-described process of producing artificial stone plates, consisting of first mixing asbestos filters and hydraulic cement in the presence of a great bulk of water, then forming therefrom a series of thin layers of the mixed cement and asbestos superposed on each other until the required thickness is secured, then pressing the same and allowing the material to set or harden, substantially as set; forth.”

I have no trouble in finding that the Sillman machine infringes this claim.

The seventh claim is as follows: - ‘

“A product of the invention hereinbefore set forth, being a composition containing hydraulic cement which has been rendered colloidal.”

1 do not interpret this claim as meaning any product containing hydraulic cement which has been rendered colloidal, for the claim is clearly limited to the product of the invention thereinbefore set forth. Indeed, the last words might have been omitted from the claim without injuring its effectiveness. Being a claim added on reissue, it would be valid only in case it was for a product of the process previously patented, and I so construe it; ut res magis valeat quam pereat. As such it covers the product of the Sillman machine, because under this [624]

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Bluebook (online)
184 F. 620, 1910 U.S. App. LEXIS 5709, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/asbestos-shingle-slate-sheathing-co-v-h-w-johns-manville-co-circtsdny-1910.