F. D. Cummer & Son Co. v. Atlas Dryer Co.

193 F. 993, 113 C.C.A. 611, 1912 U.S. App. LEXIS 1109
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 3, 1912
DocketNo. 2,153
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 193 F. 993 (F. D. Cummer & Son Co. v. Atlas Dryer Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
F. D. Cummer & Son Co. v. Atlas Dryer Co., 193 F. 993, 113 C.C.A. 611, 1912 U.S. App. LEXIS 1109 (6th Cir. 1912).

Opinion

DENISON, Circuit Judge.

Suit for injunction and accounting based on claims 7, 12, 21, 23, and 28 of patent to F. D. Cummer, No. 545,120, issued August 27, 1895, application filed March 5, 1895.

[1] The patent here in suit pertains to the art of drying various materials, and particularly to that type of dryer which employs a long, inclined, rotating, metallic cylinder through which the materials pass from the higher to the lower end, being, by the rotating movement and by internally projecting blades or flanges, carried part way up the side of the cylinder and then falling or cascading off the flanges to the bottom, in the course of their progress toward the lower end, while hot combustion products pass through the cylinder in the opposite direction. Such cylinders are mounted above a furnace and in the line of the draft therefrom, and are provided with a fan to accelerate the hot air draft. As thus generally described, they must, with reference to the patent in suit, be considered with the same effect as if a part of the prior art, because embodied in Cummer’s own patent No. 545,058, which, although bearing the issue date, August 27, 1895, was applied 'for April 9, 1894, and expired November 30, 1907, because of having been patented November 30, 1893, in England.

It is obvious that in this type of apparatus the drying is accomplished, first, by the heat applied to the outside of the cylinder shell and so affecting the materials inside of the shell, and, second, by the direct contact of the furnace gases with the drying materials as the two pass through the interior of the cylinder, and that, so far as concerns this second result, the hot gases, on entering the cylinder at its lower or tail end, at once begin to absorb moisture from the materials, and may reach their limit of absorptive efficiency before they have come to the upper or air exit end. It follows that the upper end portion of the cylinder will, or may be, more or less inoperative in this respect.

In an earlier structure of the same class, as shown in patent- No. 245,980, issued August 23, 1881, to A. G. Smith, the combustion products had been brought into direct and intimate contact with the drying materials in another way. Smith provided his cylinder shell with numerous small openings or inlets, through which the hot gases entered, mingling directly with the materials, and passing out of a stack at one end. In this way, the materials were, upon entering the cylin[995]*995der, and continually in their progress, exposed to fresh supplies of perfectly dry gases.

Cummer, in the specification of the patent in suit, points out the desirability in many cases of controlling the conditions in the respective parts of the interior of the cylinder shell, with regard to the nature of the materials to be dried. For example, considering the cylinder as divided across its length into upper, central, and lower thirds, some materials would require the upper third to be hottest and the lower third coolest, while other materials would require the contrary. Lie claims to accomplish entire control in these respects by using all parts of his construction, and to accomplish less complete but very useful control by the use of portions only of his described apparatus. Adopting, in general, the structure of his earlier patent, he scattered inlet openings over the surface of his shell, each inlet opening having a radial pipe extending a short distance inwardly and ending in a flaring hood turned toward the head end of the cylinder. Instead of using a solid arch which would carry all the furnace gases hack to enter the rear and lower open end of the cylinder, he perforated this arch with frequent openings communicating with a hot chamber above the arch and beneath the cylinder. lie also provided, communicating directly or indirectly with this hot air chamber, a series of doors opening to the outer air, whereby cold air could be brought, with more or less efficiency, to the desired part of this hot air chamber and so affect the air entering, the cylinder through the shell inlets in that vicinity. In operation the furnace would be raised to a very high temperature, the combustion products would he free from what is commonly called smoke, and the natural draft and the suction fan would draw these products, partly through the shell inlets and partly through the open lower end, up, along, and out at the upper end of the shell. The patented dryer has been successfully adopted, for drying paint, powder, drugs, pul}), and a great variety of materials, and sales are said to have amounted to one million dollars.

Claims 7 and 8 can be considered together. Claim 7 reads:

“The drying cylinder open at botli ends for the passage of material and the products of combustion in opposite directions, and baying inlet openings through the side of the cylinder, substantially as set forth.”

Claim 8 is the same as claim 7, with the addition of the suction fan and with the specification that the inlet openings'through the wall of the cylinder are “covered.”

The structure of these two claims differs from the earlier Cummer patent only in the presence of the (covered) inlet openings through the walls of the cylinder, and the question arising thereon is whether this addition involved invention. .This requires further examination of the Smith patent, above cited. Smith’s cylinder inlet openings had pipes extending radially a short distance into the cylinder. The products of combustion passed through these openings into the interior of the cylinder and along the same with the advancing materials to be dried until, at the tail end, the combustion products were discharged upward through the stack, and the dry product downward through the chute. In Smith, as in Cummer, the openings admitted the products [996]*996of combustion into the interior of the cylinder in direct contact with the materials being treated. In1 Smith, as in Cummer, the gases were carried, from these inlet openings toward the center of the cylinder by radial pipes. Smith did not have the flaring hoods of Cummer, but these are not called for by either one of these claims. So far as the device covering the inlet openings in the shell acted merely as a shield or cover to keep the contents which were near the shell from escaping through the opening, the radial pipes, in each case, performed that function. The only differences are that in Smith all the combustion products entered the cylinder through the side inlets, and, when inside, moved along with the materials, while in Cummer part of the products entered the cylinder in this way and part at the open tail end, and all the combustion products moved in a direction opposite to the motion of the materials. Under these conditions, we think invention was not involved in what Cummer did. Smith disclosed fully the idea of carrying the products of combustion through covered openings in the side of the shell into immediate contact with the inner materials. Neither the theory of operation nor the practical effect of the Smith inlets is modified or changed in their application to the Cummer cylinder. That they discharge into an air current going in one direction; instead of in another, or that they admit only part instead of all the gases, is not.a new result, nor does it involve novel co-action so as to support a claim whose only novelty lies therein. Electric Mfg. Co. v. Perkins Electric, etc., Co. (C. C. A. 6) 179 Fed. 511, 513, 103 C. C. A. 116; National Tube Co. v. Aiken (C. C. A. 6) 163 Fed. 260, 91 C. C. A. 114.

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Bluebook (online)
193 F. 993, 113 C.C.A. 611, 1912 U.S. App. LEXIS 1109, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/f-d-cummer-son-co-v-atlas-dryer-co-ca6-1912.