Bigelow v. Matthews

3 F. Cas. 357, 7 Blatchf. 77, 1869 U.S. App. LEXIS 1192

This text of 3 F. Cas. 357 (Bigelow v. Matthews) 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
Bigelow v. Matthews, 3 F. Cas. 357, 7 Blatchf. 77, 1869 U.S. App. LEXIS 1192 (circtsdny 1869).

Opinion

BLATCHFORD, District Judge.

The reissue of 1866 declares the nature of the invention described therein to be, “the provision of any desired number of apartments, reservoirs or separate chambers, to be filled with syrups or other liquids, used as a beverage, and having a measuring faucet affixed to each reservoir, so as to draw from it, and at the same time measure, a given quantity of the fluid contained therein, without removing or handling said reservoir, which is [358]*358set in contact with, or adjacent to, ice, by which its contents are kept cool.” The specification states, that the reservoirs may be placed in a line, side by side, in a permanent or rotating stand. The drawings show a circular stand of reservoirs, with a central space as a receptacle for ice to cool the contents of the reservoirs. The measuring faucet has in it a registering or measuring chamber, which communicates by a pipe with the reservoir. A rod or stem runs through the faucet in a vertical direction, and carries and operates two valves. The upper valve is a conical valve, which fits the supply opening from the pipe leading to the reservoir. The lower valve is on the lower end of the stem and serves to open and close the discharge orifice of the measuring chamber. The upper end of the stem passes out from said chamber through a packing box at its top. The lower end of the stem is guided in its movement by a bar, on which rests a spiral spring, which bears on the upper valve and keeps it raised from its seat or open, and also keeps the lower valve closed. In this condition, the communication between the reservoir and the measuring chamber, by which the latter is filled, is left open. By pressure downwards on the top of a head or thumb-piece affixed to the upper end of the valve-stem, the stem is depressed, forcing the upper valve down to its seat, and thus cutting off the communication between, the chamber in the faucet and the reservoir, and at the same time opening the lower valve, which closes the exterior of the discharge orifice. By this operation the contents of the faucet are discharged. By removing the pressure from the stem, the spring throws up the stem, the lower valve is closed and the upper valve is opened, and the measuring chamber is again filled. The specification states, that, to enable the chamber of the faucet to fill and discharge, it is necessary to have a vent therein, which may be at any convenient and proper point, and that a tube should extend from the vent up to the top of the reservoir, or other convenient point, “that will prevent the overflow of the contents of the reservoir when it is filled.” The claims of this patent are as follows: (1.) The employment of reservoirs in permanent cases or stands, revolving or otherwise, as herein described, with the registering faucets, substantially as and for the purposes herein set forth; (2.) A self-registering apparatus, with an air tube or vent, substantially as herein set forth, combined with a reservoir, as and for the purposes herein described.

The apparatus of the defendant is constructed in accordance with letters patent granted to John Matthews, Junior, October 3d, 1805, for a “soda-water apparatus.” It has a series of syrup-reservoirs, arranged in a permanent case or stand, with a registering or measuring chamber under each reservoir, constructed and operated in such manner as to be capable of measuring and discharging a definite quantity of syrup. Such chamber has at its bottom a discharge orifice and at its top a filling orifice. The filling orifice opens directly into the reservoir. A rod or stem runs vertically from above the top of the reservoir through the syrup in it, and through the measuring chamber to the bottom Of it, and, on the stem and within such chamber, are two valves, one of which fits the lower side of the filling orifice and the other of which fits the upper side of the discharging orifice. These valves are so arranged that the lifting of the stem opens the discharge orifice and closes the filling orifico, and permits the contents of the chamber to be discharged, and the depression of the stem closes the discharge orifice and opens the filling orifice, and allows the chamber to be filled, the movements of the two valves in both directions being simultaneous. The raising of the stem in the defendant’s apparatus effects what is effected by the depression of the stem in the plaintiff’s, and the depression of the stem in the defendant’s effects what is effected by the raising of the stem in the plaintiff’s. In the defendant’s apparatus there is no such vent, with a tube extending up from it, as is found in the plaintiff’s patent of 1806, that is, no vent from the measuring chamber, when empty or being filled, other than such vent as is afforded by the orifice through which the syrup comes from the reservoir; whereas, in the plaintiff’s patent of 1806, there is such vent, with a tube, in addition to what vent may be afforded by the pipe through which the syrup comes from the reservoir. Such additional vent is described, in the plaintiff’s patent of 1800, as necessary to enable the chamber to fill and discharge, and it is shown by the testimony to be thus necessary, in the apparatus described in that patent.

The first question is, whether the defendant’s apparatus, thus described, infringes the plaintiff’s patent of 1SO0. It is necessary, in order to determine this question, to first define the scope of what is claimed in the patent. As the defendant does not employ a self-registering apparatus, with such an air-tube or vent as is described in the plaintiff’s patent, it is not insisted by the plaintiff that the defendant’s apparatus infringes the second claim of the patent. The inquiry will, therefore, be confined to the construction of the first claim of the patent As the air-tube or vent, before referred to, is necessary to enable the registering chamber to fill and discharge, it is impossible to employ the reservoir in connection with the registering faucet which contains the registering chamber, for the purpose, specified in such first claim, of filling such chamber with syrup from the reservoir and then discharging such syrup from such chamber, without using such air-tube or vent. Such vent is described in the specification as being at some point in the chamber of the faucet and as having the tube extend[359]*359ing from it. The vent is, therefore, a part of the faucet. The faucet is not such a registering faucet as is referred to in, and intended by, the first claim of the patent, unless it is a faucet with such a vent. In this view, the second claim of the patent is a mere duplication of the first claim. Each claims a combination of the reservoir with the self-registering faucet containing the vent. There is no patentable substance in having several reservoirs, each with such a faucet, beyond what is found in having one reservoir with such a faucet; and the first claim of the patent would be infringed by employing one reservoir with such a faucet. As the defendant’s measuring chamber has not the additional vent referred to, it does not infringe the first claim of the patent.

The plaintiff’s patent of 1867 states the purpose of the invention therein described to be, “to economize ice, by combining with an ice-reservoir, placed on a counter, or other convenient stand, for drawing mineral water or other beverage, a conduit or pipe, through which said liquids are drawn, and a syrup-can or cans, by which said liquids are flavored; also, to economize syrup and effectually measure the same by thoroughly ventilating the measuring faucet affixed to said cans.” The syrup-cans are described as being placed in juxtaposition to the ice chamber, in a stand or caster.

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Bluebook (online)
3 F. Cas. 357, 7 Blatchf. 77, 1869 U.S. App. LEXIS 1192, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bigelow-v-matthews-circtsdny-1869.