Vermont Farm Mach. Co. v. Gibson

56 F. 143, 5 C.C.A. 451, 1893 U.S. App. LEXIS 2054
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedJune 12, 1893
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 56 F. 143 (Vermont Farm Mach. Co. v. Gibson) 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
Vermont Farm Mach. Co. v. Gibson, 56 F. 143, 5 C.C.A. 451, 1893 U.S. App. LEXIS 2054 (2d Cir. 1893).

Opinion

SHIPMAN, Circuit Judge.

The Vermont Farm Machine Company brought before the circuit court for the district of Vermont two suits in equity against Hugh G. Gibson, an inhabitant of said : district, which were respectively founded upon the alleged infringement of two letters patent, viz. No. 187,516, dated February 20, 1877, to William Cooley, for a new process of raising cream from milk; and No. 321,340, dated June 30, 1885, to Francis G. Butler, for an improvement in creaming cans. These appeals are from final decrees of the circuit court in said suits in favor of the complainant for perpetua] injunctions, and for costs and for the sums which the parties had agreed upon as nominal damages; the complainant waiving other damages, and also a recovery of the defendant’s profits. The bills in equity were brought in 1891, and did not originally aver that Gibson was an inhabitant of the district [145]*145of Vermont, whereupon the defendant demurred to the jurisdiction of the court in each case, upon the ground that under the act of August 13, 1888, the bill must affirmatively appear to have been brought in the district of which the defendant is an inhabitant. Subsequently the respective counsel signed stipulations which were duly filed in the clerk’s office. Each stipulation stated that the “bill of complaint shall be, and hereby is, amended by inserting immediately after the words ‘Hugh (1. Gibson, of Newbury, in the state of Vermont,’ the words ‘and an inhabitant of the district of Vermont.’” The defendant’s first point is that the circuit court, which had overruled the demurrer, without knowing that these stipulations had been filed, erred in so doing. The stipulations which provided that the bills not only should be, but were, amended, render examination of that point unnecessary. The improvement described in the Hu t. I or patent is so closely related to the apparatus and process of the Cooley patent that it is proper to include an examination of each patent in one opinion.

The nature and the advantages of the improved process of the Cooley patent were clearly stated in the specification of the patent as follows:

••The ordinary mode of raising cream is with open pans, either shallow or deep, and then by hand labor skimming the cream from the surface after the milk has stood, say, from thirty-six to forty-eight hours. This mode is open to several serious objections, among which may be named the exposure of the milk to the atmosphere, from which it attracts insects and absorbs gases and odors often very deleterious, and from which it collects and retains dust and dirt floating in the air; the agitation of its surface from wind and other causes; the great length of time required to raise the cream; the unavoidable lack of uniformity in the quality of the cream, and, consequently, in the butter made from it, because of the various subtle and invisible atmospheric causes which tend to taint, acidify, or otherwise vitiate it; the positive and direct exposure to all the sudden changes — electrical, thermal, and otherwise — of the atmosphere; and the necessity of having pans enough to hold the milk of two or more days’ milking. When milk is set in open vessels which are cooled by water underneath them, it being at a lower temperature than tlie surrounding atmosphere, and being, as is well known, u ready absorbent of odors find mints, it will absorb from the air by condensation the moisture contained in it, together with its impurities. By my present invention I water-seal the can or other vessel containing the milk to he treated, whereby all possibility of the entrance into it of foreign matter, gases, or odors is prevented; and when I wish to bring the whole to a uniform temperature, to any degree desired, I then submerge this vessel entirely in water of the required low degree. The effect of these two steps of the operation is the production of a better quality and of an increased quantity of cream, and in a far less period of lime than usual; the securing of a uniformity of quality all the year round; great economy in lime, apparatus, and expense; a superiority in the skimmed milk; the production from the cream thus raised of a butter having not only a better quality, but also a better keeping property; and the capacity of the remaining milk, technically called 'skimmed milk,’ of producing a better character of cheese. My invention can be very simply and cheaply practiced, and by very simple means, — such, for instance, as a tank or vessel, B, for holding water; a pan or can, (or cans,) A, preferably cylindrical, for holding the milk, provided with a removable cover, C, shaped similarly to an ordinary tin pan, and placed upside down on top of the pan, A, and held down by an appropriate weight or fastening; the overlapping or flaring sides of the cover leaving an angular space between such sides and the’ vessel, A, No packing is required to make this [146]*146cover water-tight when the water is high enough in the tank, B, to reach up to or a little above the lower edge of the cover, because the air in this annular space is then unable to rise and escape, and remains there, thus making a perfect air packing, and the whole can is thus simply but completely water-sealed. The water-sealing is a distinct thing from submerging; and, if the water be no higher than is sufficient thus to seal the cover, all the advantages due to the exclusion of the outer atmosphere and atmospheric effects are completely attained, ami a nearer approximation is also made to an equalization of the temperature of the contents of the can than by any other method known to me.”

The first claim of tlie patent, which is the only one said to have been infringed, is for water-sealing, and not for submerging, and is as follows:

“(1) The process of treating milk for raising cream by sealing with water and air the cover applied directly to the vessel containing the milk, substantially as set forth.”

The process which consists in water-sealing each separate can of milk by immersing the can in a tank of water which is high enough in the tank to reach up to or a little above the lower edge of the cover which overlaps the sides of the can, thus making an ai\ packing in the annular space between the sides of the cover and the can, has been very generally introduced into the creameries of the north, and has helped to make the manufacture of butter upon a large scale successful. The attempt, by immersing cans in water, to cool milk in large quantities, and to keep it in proper condition of temperature while the cream rises, was made before the date of the patent in suit, and the results of two of the different attempts are described in letters patent No. 182,700, dated September 26, 1876, to Dexter Pettingill, and No. 184,062, dated November 7, 1876, to William Cooley. Milk-cooling cans were also invented, and are described in letters patent No. 59,993, dated November 27, 1866, to William Garrard; to John Buckley, No. 68,696, dated September 10, 1867; and to J. P. Hawkins, No. 140,919, dated July 15, 1873. The inner milk can of the Pettingill device was closed by an ordinary cover. The space between the inner can and the outside box was filled with water. Above the box, and hinged thereto, was an ice box, with perforated bottom, which was closed by a lid. The melted water from the ice box dropped upon the lid of the milk can, and a water pipe near the top of the can conducted the waste water from the box.

In the Cooley device of 1876, there is a flange around the upper edge of the inner milk can, to form a seat for a rubber packing upon which the lower side of the edge of the can cover rests.

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Bluebook (online)
56 F. 143, 5 C.C.A. 451, 1893 U.S. App. LEXIS 2054, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vermont-farm-mach-co-v-gibson-ca2-1893.