Home/U.S. Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey/Babcock & Wilcox Co. v. North American Dredging Co.

Babcock & Wilcox Co. v. North American Dredging Co.

151 F. 265, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4964
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey
DecidedFebruary 7, 1907
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 151 F. 265 (Babcock & Wilcox Co. v. North American Dredging Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Babcock & Wilcox Co. v. North American Dredging Co., 151 F. 265, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4964 (circtdnj 1907).

Opinion

LANNING, District Judge.

The hill charges the defendant with conjoint infringement of claim 5 of patent No. 439,684, granted November 4, 1890, to N. W. Pratt, and the only claim of patent No. 595,852, granted December 21, 1897, to W. D. Hoxie. Each of the patents relates to improvements in steam-boilers and each of them is now owned by the complainant. Claim 5 of the Pratt patent is as follows:

“In a sectional steam-boiler, the combination of the furnace, the groups of inclined generating-tubes in vertical succession, having combustion spaces between them, the group or groups adjacent the furnace being composed of tubes of comparatively large diameter located at uniform distances apart, the succeeding group or groups being composed of tubes of comparatively small diameter arranged.in sub-groups or clusters, the intervening spaces of which are greater than the intervening spaces between the constituents of the clusters.”

The claim of the Ploxie patent is as follows: ,•

“In a sectional steam-boiler of the type described, the combination with the reversed inclined water-tubes of a transverse steam and water drum, located at the front of the boiler in the space above said tubes, as shown and described.”

It will be observed that each of these claims relate to a “sectional steam-boiler.” The, defendant contends that its boiler is nonsectional, while the complainant insists that it is sectional. This is the first disputed point demanding consideration.

The testimony shows very clearly that the dispute arises from the fact that the witnesses for the complainant and those for the defendant do not adopt a common basis for their classification of boilers'. The complainant’s witnesses consider as sectional (1) any boiler in which the water, instead of being confined in one mass in a shell, is distributed amongst tubes which have a front header and a rear header each common to all the tubes; and (2) any boiler in which the water, instead of being confined in one mass in a shell, is distributed amongst tubes composed of separate groups, each group having a front header and a rear header common only to the tubes of that group. The defendant’s witnesses insist that a sectional steam-boiler is only such an one as is built in sections; each section being composed of a group of tubes which have front and rear headers common only to the tubes of that group. The defendant’s boiler is a water-tube boiler, and therefore, according to the complainant’s, witnesses, is sectional, but its front and rear headers are common to all the tubes, and, for this reason, the defendant’s witnesses say it is nonsectional. We see, then, that the complainant’s witnesses denominate as sectional any boiler whose water is divided into sections, while the defendant’s witnesses denominate as sectional any boiler whose headers are divided into [267]*267sections. The complainant’s classification is based on the treatment of the confined water; the defendant’s classification is based on the mechanical construction of the boiler. There is authority for both uses of the term “sectional steam-boiler.” The term originated, however, in the rise which the complainant’s witnesses make of it. This is admitted by the defendant’s expert witness, Mr. William Stuart-Smith, who says:

“Terms once applied to any device possess a great deal of inertia, and are diiiicuu to displace, even iliougli they become misnomers. When the water-tube type of boiler was first introduced, a hundred or more years ago, they were called ‘sectional boilers’ to distinguish the new type, and they remained so for many years under that name; hut later, when the type became subdivided,- it wag readily seen that the term was a misnomer and by no means described fully the type. Therefore the new name, ‘water-tube boiler,’ was used instead and 1ms become of general use, although, as I say, the inertia of a term renders the use of the term ‘sectional’ by many people still common. Nevertheless it is not correct.”

Mr. Stuart-Smith’s admission that the complainant’s use of the term “sectional” is still common is corroborated by other proofs in the case. The complainant’s two patents were granted in 1890 and 1897, and Prof. Hutton, in his work “The Mechanical Engineer of Power Plants” (edition of 1897), says:

“A sectional boiler is a steam generator in which the plan of a single enveloping shell to contain the water and steam is abandoned, and is replaced by that of a number of small generating vessels so joined together that the steam formed in all of these separate units or sections is delivered from a common disengagement surface into a common steam space. The sectional principle may bo -carried in a boiler of large capacity to tlie extent of subdividing the disengagement area, so that the steam from several such areas would be delivered into a common steam drum, from which it shall be withdrawn by the steam pipe.”

Quotations from, other standard authorities, and from cyclopaedias and dictionaries, might be made to show that the use of the term “sectional steam-boiler,” in the sense in which the complainant’s witnesses have used it, is common in the literature on the subject of steam-boilers. The present duty is to ascertain the sense in which the term is used in the complainant’s two patents.

The Pratt patent is entitled “Sectional Steam-Boiler.” The opening words of the specification are:

“Be it known that I, Nat. W. Pratt, * ® * have invented certain new and useful improvements in sectional steam-boilers, of which the following is a specification: The herein described water-tube boiler is especially adapted for marine service. The conslruetion' of the same embodies a supporting structure composed as far as possible of the pipes forming the water spaces of the boiler.”

I think the term “water-tube boiler” was here used synonymously with “sectional steam-boiler,” for these reasons: First, because at the time the patent was granted such use of the term was common; second, because the term “sectional steam-boiler,” used in the title of the patent, and the term “sectional steam-boilers,” used in the first sentence [268]*268of the specification, relate to a class of boilers no .less comprehensive than the class referred to by the term-“water-tube boiler,” used in the second sentence of the specification, the defendant’s construction being •one which makes the term “water-tube boiler” more comprehensive than the term “sectional steam-boiler”; and, third, because the use of the term “water spaces,” in the third sentence of the specification, shows that the patentee had in°mind sectional divisions of the water, and not sectional divisions of the mechanical structure. The mere fact that in the subsequent portions of the specification a sectional-headed boiler is described is not sufficient to justify the defendant’s conclusion that the sectional steam-boilers referred to in the patent ' include only those boilers that have sectional headers.

The single claim of the Hoxie patent speaks of a combination “in a sectional steam-boiler of the type-described.” These words of the claim refer to the type of boiler described in the specification. That type is a water-tube boiler, with reversed inclined tubes and a transverse steam and water drum located at the front of the boiler in the space above the tubes. There is no suggestion in the specification that the headers are sectional or nonsectional.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
151 F. 265, 1907 U.S. App. LEXIS 4964, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/babcock-wilcox-co-v-north-american-dredging-co-circtdnj-1907.