Lackawanna Iron & Steel Co. v. Davis-Colby Ore Roaster Co.

131 F. 68, 65 C.C.A. 306, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4269
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedJuly 5, 1904
DocketNo. 62
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 131 F. 68 (Lackawanna Iron & Steel Co. v. Davis-Colby Ore Roaster Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lackawanna Iron & Steel Co. v. Davis-Colby Ore Roaster Co., 131 F. 68, 65 C.C.A. 306, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4269 (3d Cir. 1904).

Opinion

GRAY, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from the decree of the Circuit Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, sustaining certain claims in two patents, granted to Robson C. Greer, for ore roasting and calcining furnaces, and assigned to the appellee, and decreeing an injunction and an accounting against the appellants, for an infringement thereof by an ore roaster first erected and operated at Scranton, Pa., and afterwards removed to Lebanon, Pa., where it not stands.

The Davis-Colby Ore Roaster Company, the appellee, is engaged in the business of erecting ore roasters, which are large furnaces in which iron ore (which is to be subsequently smelted or reduced in a blast furnace) is given a preparatory moderate heating in a draught of oxygen, for the purpose of expelling sulphur contained in the ore. Appellee’s principal place of business is in Philadelphia, and the appellant, the Lackawanna Iron & Steel Company, is a large manufacturer of steel, having its main works, which were formerly at Scranton, Pa., in Buffalo, N. Y. Henri Wehrum, manager of the appellant company, is joined as a codefendant in the court below.

The bill of complaint charges the defendant with having built at Scranton, Pa., an ore roaster which infringes upon three of complainant’s patents, covering what is known as the “Davis-Colby Ore Roaster.” These three patents comprise the two Green patents, above mentioned, and a patent granted to Owen W. Davis, also assigned to the appellee. Upon final hearing, the court below dismissed the bill as to the Davis patent, but sustained the two Greer patents, and found that they had both been infringed. The usual injunction and accounting was accordingly decreed upon these two patents, and from this decree the defendant has appealed.

The patents, therefore, brought before us upon this appeal are: No. 495,883, dated April 18, 1893, granted to Robson C. Greer, and as to which infringement is held as to claims 3 and 4 thereof; No. 508,542, dated November 14, 1893, to Robson C. Greer, infringement of which is held as to claims 3, 4, 5 and 8 thereof.

Infringement of the third and eighth claim of the Greer patent, No. 508,542, is admitted by the appellant, who claims, however, that the said claims are invalid by reason of anticipation. These claims are dominant and controlling in the structure of the Davis-Colby Ore Roaster, covering as they do the three coextensive vertical chambers, to wit, the combustion chamber, the air chamber and the draught equalizing chamber. The other claims involved are the third and fourth claims of Greer patent No. 495,883, and the fourth and fifth claims of Greer patent No. 508,542. These claims cover the gas and air inlets for the combustion chamber.

The discussion of the prior art, by appellant’s counsel, in support of the defense of anticipation, is confined to the patent granted in 1870 to Knox and Osborn, No. 104,323, and to the patent to Valentine, No. 459,799, granted in 1891, and to the patent to Kleeman, No. 399,995, [70]*70granted in 1889. This latter reference, counsel for appellant speaks of as the one “most nearly in point,” and practically confines his agument to a discussion of its features with relation to those of the Greer patents in suit.

The very full and exhaustive discussion by the learned judge of the court below of the claims of the two Greer patents, and of the prior art, especially with reference to the alleged anticipation of the Kleeman patent, would render a separate opinion by this court a mere paraphrase of what has been sufficiently said by the court below. We therefore content ourselves with adopting the opinion of the learned judge of the circuit court (reported in 128 Fed. 4-53), and we quote the same, omitting only those parts thereof referring to the Owen W. Davis patent, as to which there was a decree of no infringement, and to the Valentine and Sibley patents, which are so dissimilar, both in their object and in the structure claimed in them, as to require no further mention. In fact, none of them, except the Kleeman patent, seems to have been thought worthy of serious discussion by appellant’s counsel. The opinion, with the exceptions noted, is as follows;

“The structure which is the subject of this litigation is what is known as an ore roaster, designed for expelling the sulphur from iron ore preliminary to smelting. Some ores have no sulphur but others are seriously impregnated with it, and this is particularly true of that obtained from the famous Cornwall banks near Lebanon, Pa., from which it has been the problem of a hundred years to successfully eliminate it. The complainants are the owners of three patents which are concerned with this subject, two issued to R. C. Greer —in April and November, 1893 — and one to O. W. Davis, Jr., in May, 1894. Under these patents they undertook to erect at Lebanon in 1895 for the defendant company, who were operating the Colebrook furnaces there, an ore roaster with a capacity of one hundred tons daily, guarantied to roast down the sulphur to six-tenths of one per cent. This roaster did not work successfully at first, but was made to do so in the end, although there is some question whether this was not the result of favoring it with large sized ore. In order to overcome, however, existing difficulties permission was obtained to rebuild certain parts of it and plans for this purpose were submitted; and whatever lack of success there was or whatever was the cause of it the defendant company appear to have been sufficiently satisfied to ask for a proposition looking to the erection of a plant of five roasters at Scranton, Pa., where their principal works then were, in response to which the complainants made suggestion as to further changes which seemed desirable. But when it was found that a royalty of $1,200 for each roaster would be required Mr. Wehrum. the general manager of the defendants, refused to pay it and broke off the negotiations declaring he had never seen a patent which he could not get around. Immediately following this a roaster was put up by the defendants themselves under the direction of Mr. Wehrum, at Scranton, closely following in general design the plans and suggestions submitted by the complainants, certain changes however in matters of detail being introduced on which Mr. Wehrum at a later date applied for and obtained two several patents. This roaster was subsequently taken down and removed to Lebanon where it is now in use. The facts with regard to the original relations of the parties while given at this length, are not very material except as they go to show that infringement, if found to exist, is deliberate, and that Mr. Wehrum is properly joined as a defendant on account of his individual participation in it.
“The roasting furnace which is the subject of the turn Greer patents is made up of three vertical chambers, each coextensive with the other two, the center one being designed to hold the ore to be roasted and having openings at several points into each of the others, a combustion chamber on the one side being fed from below by fuel gas intermixed with air to insure combustion and the heat and flame being drawn therefrom through the ore by means of the open[71]*71ings provided for the purpose and the draft obtained from the stack chamber, the sulphur being expelled from the ore and carried off in the process. In the first Greer the form of furnace shown — although none is specified — is circular and the chambers annular; but in the second Greer, as in the defendants’ structure, the chambers are rectangular.

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Bluebook (online)
131 F. 68, 65 C.C.A. 306, 1904 U.S. App. LEXIS 4269, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lackawanna-iron-steel-co-v-davis-colby-ore-roaster-co-ca3-1904.