Carter Mach. Co. v. Hanes

78 F. 346, 24 C.C.A. 128, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 1683
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 2, 1897
DocketNo. 175
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 78 F. 346 (Carter Mach. Co. v. Hanes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Carter Mach. Co. v. Hanes, 78 F. 346, 24 C.C.A. 128, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 1683 (4th Cir. 1897).

Opinion

SIMQNTON, Circuit Judge.

This case comes up by appeal from a decree of the circuit court of the United States for the Western district of North Carolina. The complainant below filed a bill in equity against the defendant, alleging an infringement of its patent. The circuit court dismissed the bill, and the complainant appealed to this court.

The appellant holds, by assignment, patent No. 494,960, granted to James M. King, April 4, 1898, and assigned to the appellant April 10, 1893. The patent is for a tobacco flavoring machine. The first claim, and the only one in suit, is “the combination, in a tobacco flavoring machine, of a rotary flaring drum, provided with driving mechanism, a feed hopper emptying into the smaller end of the drum, and a spraying device located within the drum, whereby th« tobacco is sprayed and leaves separated as they pass through the drum, substantially as described.” Mechanical devices for applying a flavoring liquid to tobacco were well known before the date of this pat ent. The patent of Smith & Messenger (No. 172,666, January 25, 1876) shows a flavoring machine, consisting of an inclined cylindrical rotating drum, through which tobacco passes, and in its passage is sprayed by a spraying- device located outside of the drum at its lower end. Smith & Messenger improved on this by patent No. 187,187. These have expired. O. F. Bjiek also had a patent (No. 195,578, October 9, 1877) for spraying tobacco leaves. His device has an inclined cylindrical drum, through which the leaves of tobacco pass, and in their passage are sprayed from a spraying nozzle at the upper end of the drum. So King was not a pioneer in seeking and obtaining this result by means of a revolving cylinder and a spraying device.

His claim is for the combination in a tobacco flavoring machine of three parts, — a hopper, a flaring drum, and a spraying device within the drum. His claim, then, is for an entirety. He cannot abandon a part, and claim the rest. He must stand by his claim as he has made it. If more or less than the whole of his ingredients are used by another, such party is not an infringer, because he has not used the invention or discovery patented. Shumacher v. Cornell, 96 U. S. 549. When a patent is for a combination only, none of the separate elements of which the combination is composed are included in the monopoly. Rowell v. Lindsay, 113 U. S. 101, 5 Sup. Ct. 507. Or, as expressed by Mr. Justice Bradley in The Corn-Planter Patent (Brown v. Guild), 23 Wall. 181:

“When a patentee, after describing a machine, claims as his invention a certain combination of elements, or a certain device or part of the machine, this is an Implied declaration, as conclusive, so far as that patent is concerned, as if it were expressed, that the specific combination or thing claimed is-the only part which the patentee regards as new.”

See, also, Voss v. Fisher, 113 U. S. 213, 5 Sup. Ct. 511.

The pails of the combination claimed by the patentee are not new. The hopper has long been well known, and numerous patents are cited in the answer, showing its frequent use before the date of this patent. Indeed, the concise and clear definition given of this term [348]*348by the expert of the appellant to the court below establishes this. “A hopper is a mechanical device which, in the progress of the arts, was resorted to to take the place of- the hands for the purpose of feeding or conducting a substance from one position to another.” So, also, the flaring drum was not unknown to the art before the date of this patent, and it is frequently spoken of as the equivalent of an inclined cylinder. In the patent of Justus (No. 317,461, May 5, 1885) is shown a conical drum, and in his specification he says: “The conduit, B, instead of being made flaring or conical, may be in the form of a true cylinder.” So Coker’s patent (No. 249,009,-November 1, 1881) shows a conical drum, and the patentee says, in his application: “The drying cylinders are arranged in an inclined position, so that the grain will gradually work its way from the upper to the lower ends of said cylinders, or the same thing can be accomplished by making the cylinders conical.” So in Coleman’s patent (No. 111,-612, February 7, 1871) a conical drum is used. “It consists,” says the patentee, “of a large, hollow, revolving vessel, which may be cylindrical in shape, or it may be slightly tapered, so as to be somewhat smaller at one end than the other.” He goes on: “The vessel, C, is either cylindrical, or it may form a hollow frustrara of a cone, in which case the necessary inclination will be given to the bottom without inclining the axis on which it revolves.” Also, as has been seen, a spraying device, for spraying leaf tobacco within a revolving cylinder, was used both in the Smith & Messenger patents and in that of Bjick. So the spraying of leaf tobacco, being well known, the use of the hopper being general, the utilization of the inclined cylinder or its equivalent, the conical or flaring tube, having been discovered, and a mode of spraying from a tube being also known, the appellant can rely only on the combination of the patent, and it must stand by the claim of the patentee as he made it.

The machine of the defendant, which is charged with the infringement of this patent, was originally constructed under the direction of John C. Frost. It has the flaring tube, and a spraying device at the lower end of the tube, outside of it. It differs with the machine of appellant in the hopper. The hopper, in the patent, is attached to the rear or smaller end of the drum. The hopper is supported between uprights, on bars, and at its inner lower end is a spout. In the lower end of the hopper is a feed roller, mounted on a shaft, which is moved by. a belt passing over belt pulleys.' In operation, the feed roller (which begins to rotate as soon as the machine is put in action) carries the supply of tobacco in the hopper out through the spout' at the lower end of the hopper into the rotary flaring drum. The machine used by the defendant has no hopper like this, and no device by which the leaves of tobacco are put into any receptacle, and are fed into the drum by the action of the machinery. It has an opening at the back of the dram, with a sort of shute, and through this hole the tobacco is fed by hand into the drum. This, clearly, is not a mechanical device, resorted to to take the place of the hands, for the purpose of feeding or conducting a substance from one position to another. So, in this important feat-[349]*349uro of the combination, the machine of the defendant is lacking. "There is no infringement of a patent which claims mechanical powers in combination, unless all the parts have been substantially used.” Eames v. Godfrey, 1 Wall. 78. A combination of the me-chanieal parts of an entire machine is not infringement, except by the use of the entire combination. Brown v. Guild (quoted as “The Corn-Planter Patent”) 23 Wall. 181.

Again, the claim of the patentee places his spraying machine within the drum. That of the defendant is without the drum. Is this an essential part of the machine of the appellant? The application of the patentee for his patent met with frequent disallowance and rejection by the commissioner, and in every instance of rejection the location of the spraying device was not fixed. The claim which finally passed was that which located the spraying device within the drum.

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Bluebook (online)
78 F. 346, 24 C.C.A. 128, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 1683, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/carter-mach-co-v-hanes-ca4-1897.