Nelson v. A. D. Farmer & Son Type-Founding Co.

95 F. 145, 37 C.C.A. 32, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2452
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedMay 25, 1899
DocketNo. 160
StatusPublished

This text of 95 F. 145 (Nelson v. A. D. Farmer & Son Type-Founding Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Nelson v. A. D. Farmer & Son Type-Founding Co., 95 F. 145, 37 C.C.A. 32, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2452 (2d Cir. 1899).

Opinion

SHIPMAN, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). All American and many European type-casting machines are based upon the machine invented by David Bruce, of New York, in 1838. A very general- description of the Bruce machine is given in Knight’s Mechanical Dictionary, as follows:

“The metal is kept fluid by a gas jet beneath, and is projected into the mold by a pump, the spout of which is in front of the metal pot. Each revolution of the crank brings the mold up to the spout, where it receives a charge of metal. It flies back with it, the top of the mold opens, and the type falls out. * * * [147]*147Viter cns'ing. Hie jet or surplus metal, at tlie loot of Hie type, and wliieli filled i lie ingate of tlie mold, Is broken off.”

This description does not tell how the type is removed or is delivered from the mold, and, as the method of removal is an important part of ihe improved machines of the patentees, it is desirable to understand the method in the machines of the Bruce class, which the appellees described as follows:

“Tlie easting was carried in the upper member of ihe mold by means of a pin or pins sot through one wall of that member, and protruding almost imperceptibly into ihe type-cavity of the mold, so that the metal flows around tlio protruding end of such pin; and the pin thus obtains a grasp on the casting sufficient to lift it out of the lower member when the mold opens, such lower member having no especial provision for causing the adhesion of the casting to it.” “The casting thus formed and lifted by the upper member out of the lower member by the opening movement of the upper member has a projection at each end. At the head end, the metal which flowed into the recess of tlie matrix projects a distance equal to the deptli of the matrix cavity, and the •sprue,’ whose length is always at least -the thickness of the nipple-plate, projects from the jet end. These two projections are taken advantage of to detach the typo from tlie upper member of the mold after the mold has opened, or in the latter part of the opening movement. A linger, which for some unknown reason is called the ‘stool,’ rigid with the lower or fixed member of the mold, overhangs tlie projecting face of the casting at the head end; and an arm or finger, called the ‘back-discharge arm,’ similarly overhangs the ‘sprue’ at the jet end, and, as the pivoted member of the mold rises, carrying the casting with it, the projections at tlie ends respectively of the casting encounter the ‘stool’ and ‘baek-discliarge arm’ respectively, and the type is thereby knocked loose from the upper member, and falls upon the lower member, and both being inclined at an angle of about 45°, the casting slides from the surface of the lower member into a chute, by which it; is conducted to a receptacle.”

Each casting, as thus made, consisted of the type body and the “jet” in one piece, and the jet was subsequently taken off by hand, an operation which was expensive, for one boy or one girl was frequently required at each machine; and, when carelessly performed, a portion of the type was damaged. It therefore was desirable to have the breaking done automatically, and this was the object of the inventions now under consideration, which were rapidly adopted, and which soon had commercial success. The invention described in patent A was to pin or detain the casting not only in the upper member by the pin which lias been described, but also to compel the casting in the lower member to be likewise held or detained by pins or similar detaining devices protruding into the casting. When tlie mold was opened, and the type and jet were detained, and the upper member of the mold rose, a strain came upon the two parts of the casting, which snapped >sunder at the line called the “break,” at the junction of the jet with the lower end of the type proper. As an h-shaped discharge finger, rigid with the upper member of the mold, and carried by its movement, moved past the lower member of the mold, it came in contact with the sprue, and dislodged the jet, which rolled down an incline. In the invention described in patent T> the patentees used, instead of pins in the lower mold, notches upon the face of the lower half of the mold, which in the process of casting became tilled with the molten metal, formed wedge-like projections on The under side of the jet, and retained it in its ¡face until dislodged by the moving arm or linger, which was actuated by a moving part of rhe machine, instead of by the upper [148]*148member of the mold. Tbe patentee of patent C used holes or detent points in the lower mold, and an arm which rested upon or was supported by the apron, or rocking frame, which carries the mold to and from the melting pot, and was actuated by the mold-opening arm.

The point upon which the case turns is whether the automatic breaking device of the three patents in suit, and particularly that part of the device described in claim 1 of patents A and B, was anticipated by the invention described in the patent to Thomas Mason, No. 187,-880, dated February 27, 1877, which was also for a type-casting mold in which the jet was automatically broken from the type. The specification is very short, and is as follows:

In the “breaks” between which metal is injected into the mold “angular or V-shaped recesses, a, are formed, which, when the mold is closed together, are oppositely arranged in respect to each other, so that, when metal is injected into the mold, angular shoulders, b, corresponding in form to the recesses, a, are formed on each side of the break, c, of the type, so that, as the mold is opened with the type or casting in it, the contrary action of the oppositely arranged inclined sides of the recesses, a, produces sufficient strain to sever the break from the type, which is retained by the shoulders of the mold.”

It will be observed that the patent described no additional means by which the broken jet was ejected from the mold. The Mason invention was carefully tried by type makers for the purpose of introduction into their foundries, and, while it made type which was used and sold, it was an unsuccessful device, which fell into disuse, and ceased to have a position in the type-making art. It is urged, however, that it possessed all the elements of claim 1 of patent A, that it had a type-detaining device and jet-retaining device in the respective parts of the mold, and that the different, and perhaps improved, modifications in the patents in suit were mere mechanical changes, not possessing the element of invention. To ascertain the accuracy of the idea that the principle of the two devices was the same, it is important to know why the one failed and the other succeeded. In the Mason device the jet-was not, as a rule, held down or detained in the mold, but was pulled apart from the body of the type by a lengthwise pull, was raised up from the mold, and was ejected. The ejection was not uniform in respect either to the time of the movement or to the place 'to which the broken part was ejected. On the other hand, in the device of the patent in suit each part of the type is positively detained in the mold, and, thus detained, one part is severed from the other by the upward movement of the moving part of the mold, and the jet is then ejected by the moving arm; and while it is true tliat sometimes the jet is held in the stationary part of the Mason mold, such holding is not an intended part of the device, whereas detention is the intended result of the detaining devices, which, in connection with the ejecting arm, are the distinctive features of the patent in suit.

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95 F. 145, 37 C.C.A. 32, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2452, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/nelson-v-a-d-farmer-son-type-founding-co-ca2-1899.