Bowers v. Von Schmidt

63 F. 572, 1894 U.S. App. LEXIS 2981
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Northern California
DecidedJuly 23, 1894
DocketNo. 10,244
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 63 F. 572 (Bowers v. Von Schmidt) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Northern California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bowers v. Von Schmidt, 63 F. 572, 1894 U.S. App. LEXIS 2981 (circtndca 1894).

Opinion

McKEVVA, Circuit Judge

(orally). This is an action for the infringement of certain claims of two patents issued to plaintiff. The first is numbered 318,859, and dated May 26, 1885, and the second numbered 355,251, and dated December 28, 3886. There is no claim which contains all of what plaintiff claims to be his invention. Its elements are variously combined in 103 claims. Of these, infringement is alleged of Nos. 10, 16, 25, 26, 33, 53, 54, 59, and 75 of patent Vo. 318,859 (Exhibit A), and of 13, 14, 17, 18, and 22 of patent No. 355,251 (Exhibit B). In the first patent the machine is called a “dredging machine';” in the second, a “hydraulic dredging apparatus.” The purpose of both is the dredging of river bottoms, and the transporting of the “spoils” to land.

The elements of the first are: A boat of suitable shape, with suitable machinery to furnish power for its operating parts; a bottomless bucket excavator, of moderate size; a nonrotating suction pipe, mounted on strong trunnions or other equivalent joints; a discharge pipe flexibly joined to the boat at or near its center of oscillation, and consisting of sections flexibly joined, and resting on or supported by hollow floats, and flexibly connected with a nonflexible section which rests on land. There is no controversy about any of the elements, or of the construction of any, except the form or kind of center of oscillation, and the form or kind of excavator. The issue between the parties principally turns on them. The patent describes two centers of oscillation: One a turntable (Figs. 1, 2, and 10), which may be made to rotate by any suitable means in a circular well. It: contains two apertures, into which vertical anchors or spuds are fitted loosely, and which may pass through, as occasion requires, into the mud below, and which hold the turntable stationary, the boat swinging about it from side to side. Second, the turntable made rigid with the boat, and so adjusted that the vertical anchors or spuds are arranged on either side of the central line of the boat, enabling each spud, alternately, as it is dropped into the mud, to act as a pivot upon which the boat may swing.

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[576]*576The operation of dredging, as described in the patent, is as follows:

“The vertical anchors and excavator being raised to allow freedom of motion, the dredger is placed in position, with the turntable in line with the longitudinal axis of the proposed cut. The turntable is then rotated until the vortical anchors are also in line with said axis, and both anchors are dropped into the mud. The discharge pipe is placed in position, the blocks. U, U, anchored at suitable points for swinging the machine, and the dredger swung round until the excavator reaches the side of the proposed cut, as shown in Fig. 10. The lines,'M, M, are drawn taut, and the excavator lowered below the surface of the water. The pump, B. is then primed and started, and the excavator set in motion, and lowered, its entire diameter, into the mud. The proper winding drum is then engaged, and the dredger, swinging on the turntable as a pivot or center of oscillation, rapidly cuts its way to the opposite side. To secure a steady side feed, the friction couxiiing of the unwinding drum may be adjusted to keep the unwinding line sufficiently taut to prevent the veering of the dredger with wind or tide. Upon reaching the opposite side the winding drum is disengaged, the excavator again lowered its full diameter, the side food reversed, and the dredger cuts back again. This process is repeated until the proper depth is obtained. The excavator is then raised above the bank in front, the anchor, G, raised, as shown in Mg. 2, and the'turntable rotated upon the anchor. G-, until G is squarely in front of G2, in line with the longitudinal axis of the xtroposed excavation, as indicated by the broken-lined outline, G1 (Fig. 2). G is then dropped into the mud, and the work x>roceeds as before; the dredger having been fed forward the distance between the centers of the vertical anchors, which is fixed to correspond with the cut capable of being made by the' excavator. This arrangement for feeding forward keeps the center of oscillation of the dredger coincident with that from which the are to be cut by the excavator should be described. A less perfect forward feed is secured by placing the dredger so that the excavator is at the side, and the turntable is in lino with the longitudinal axis of the liroposed excavation. The turntable is then rotated until the vertical anchors are in a line parallel with the transverse axis of the dredger, where it is made stationary. This leaves one anchor diagonally in advance of the other, the dredger lying diagonally across one-half of the line of the proposed excavation. The forward anchor is now dropped into the mud to form a pivot, upon which the dredger swings as it cuts to the opposite side. The dredger then lies diagonally across the other half of the line of the proposed excavation, the swing having brought the rear anchor to the front. This anchor in turn is dropped to form a new pivot, and the other anchor is then raised. The dredger swings first upon one and then upon the other anchor, these anchors being alternately raised and lowered for this purpose. As this mode of feeding by swinging alternately upon two different pivots gives a wedge-shaxied cut, requiring two full swings to make one full cut, it is equivalent to a loss of one-half of the time, and it is used only to' prevent stopxiage of work when the apx>aratus for rotating the turntable is stopped for repairs or other >?ause, in which case it becomes valuable.”

The use of the spuds as centers of oscillation, it will be observed, the patent says, secures a less perfect forward feed than the turntable, and it was not described in the original specification, but was inserted afterwards, and defendant claims, after a patent to one Angelí, and plaintiff had seen a dredger constructed by defendant. If so, it was not a part of his original invention, and he must be confined to the turntable as a center of oscillation. That the use of the spuds alone was not described in the original specification is true, but the evidence does not sustain the other contention of defendant, that plaintiff copied from defendant, or was anticipated by Angelí. Plaintiff exhibited a drawing made as early as July 13, [577]*5771864, in which two sx>uds are shown as self-contained pivots and centers of oscillation, and in which the turntable is not shown. On the drawing of July 13, 1864, describing the use of the anchors, he said:

“The dredge swings on a vertical anchor, or on two—first on one, and then on the other. But this makes a wedge-sliape cut, requiring two full swings to make one full cut. I think I can find some way to got around this.”

The anchors, as pivots or centers of oscillation, were also shown in models made prior to AngelFs application.

The defendant's counsel, however, seem to urge that the date of an invention cannot be shown by a drawing or a model. I say ‘■'seem,” because their meaning is not clear. They say:' .

“Under the law and the facts of this case, the patented invention of Mr. Bowers can only date from the time of the filing of the application for his patent. It has been repeatedly decided that a conception of an invention, even when reduced to drawings or shown in models, does not constitute an invention.”

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Bluebook (online)
63 F. 572, 1894 U.S. App. LEXIS 2981, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bowers-v-von-schmidt-circtndca-1894.