Western Well Works, Inc. v. Layne & Bowler Corp.

276 F. 465, 1921 U.S. App. LEXIS 2105
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedOctober 17, 1921
DocketNo. 3627
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 276 F. 465 (Western Well Works, Inc. v. Layne & Bowler Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Western Well Works, Inc. v. Layne & Bowler Corp., 276 F. 465, 1921 U.S. App. LEXIS 2105 (9th Cir. 1921).

Opinions

MORROW, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal by the defendants from the interlocutory decree of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California, Second Division, entered De[466]*466cember 31,-1920. The validity of patent No. 821,653 for “well mechanism,” and the infringement of claims 9, 13, and 20, were in issue. The decree sustains the validity of the claims and holds that the defendants had infringed said claims, and directs a permanent injunction to issue against the defendants, enjoining and restraining them from making, using, selling, or causing to be made, used, or sold, any well mechanism embodying or containing the invention described in said letters patent and claimed in and by said claims 9, 13, and 20.

. In the application for the patent in suit, Tayne declared that he had “invented certain new and useful improvements in well mechanism,” and he specifies that his “invention relates to the apparatus used for drawing water from driven or artesian wells, and particularly to the means for adjusting a pump therein.”

The objects of the invention, he declares, are:

“To provide means by wMch the piping and the pump may be all assembled in proper shape before inserting it into the well; to provide means by which a pump may be placed in any desired position in a 'well, centered, raised, or lowered and fixed in position by manipulating from the outside entirely; to provide means for adjusting the length of the piping leading from the pump to the surface at will and to’ lower the pump from time to time without taking it out of the well; to provide improved means for centering and fixing the pump in proper position in the well casing; to provide improved means for manipulating the packing of the pump shaft, and proper adjustment of the pump in place by means at the surface of the ground; to provide for the proper action of a pump without stopping up the well, so that the water may be either flowed into or pumped out of the same at pleasure; to provide a superior mounting for a centrifugal pump in the well, manipulated from the surface of the ground; to provide an extensible pump shaft separately supported at intervals along its length; to provide an automatic centering device for the pump in the well; to provide for mounting the pump and the shaft in a closed casing which is open to operate from the top; to obviate the necessity of making large wells for descending into them in order to arrange the pump, and to generally improve and cheapen the apparatus used for the above purposes.”

[1] The specification informs the public of the objects to be accomplished by the improvements in the well mechanism invented by the applicant, and for the purpose of claiming all his improvements in the mechanism as inventions he makes 22 claims. Six of these claims, namely, those numbered I, 2, 8, 11, 16, and 19, assemble certain specified elements in each claim as forming in such claim a unit of invention in the mechanism. The remaining claims, namely, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, IS, 17, 18, 20, 21, and 22, assemble certain specified elements in combination in each claim as also forming in such claim a Unit of invention in the mechanism. The various elements in all these claims relate to the one principal invention of a “well mechanism.” In that relation they are all designed to co-operate in co-operating towards the common end of being employed in an apparatus to he used for drawing clean water from a driven or artesian well. The patent comes within the rule stated by Mr. Justice Story in Wyeth v. Stone, 1 Story, 273, 292, 30 Fed. Cas. page 723, No. 18,107, where it was held that a patent for several machines, each being a distinct and independent invention, is valid where they have a common purpose and are auxiliary to the same common end. It is [467]*467not necessary, in order to maintain a suit, upon such a patent, says the court, “that there should be a violation of the patent, throughout. It is sufficient if any one of the invented machines or improvements is wrongfully used; for that, pro tanto, violates the patent.”

To the same effect is Emerson v. Hogg, 2 Blatchf. 1, 8, 8 Fed. Cas. 628, No. 4,440; Hogg v. Emerson, 6 How, 437, 12 L. Ed. 505; Hogg v. Emersou, 11 How. 587, 13 L. Ed. 824.

This rule applies to the invention described in a separate claim as well as to the invention described in the patent as a whole.

The claims charged to have been infringed in this case are 9, 13, and 20 of the combination class. For convenience and accuracy of reference we separate the elements of these claims into clauses, as follows:

Claim 9:

(1) In a well mechanism

(2) the combination with a pump casing, of

(3) a rotary pump, of

(4) a jointed pump shaft, and

(5) a closed casing surrounding the pump shaft

(6) from the pump to the top of the well.

Claim 13:

(1) The combination with

(2) a pump and its

(3) actuating shaft of

(4) a sectional casing therefor

(5) provided at each end of each section, with

(6) a fixed block with

(7) bearings for the shaft;

(8) the casing being closed at the top and provided with

(9) an air vent.

Claim 20:

(1) The combination of

(2) a well casing,

(3) a rotary pump therein, and

(4) a line shaft for the pump

(5) entirely closed off from the water in the well.

Referring to the specification and assemblage of the parts of the mechanism in preferred forms illustrated in the drawings accompanying the application for the patent, we find that the “rotary pump” mentioned in clause 3 of claim 9, the “pump” mentioned in clause 2 of claim 13, and the “rotary pump” mentioned in clause 3 of claim 20, have the same identical function, and the approved form of the “pump” used by the inventor is a centrifugal pump. We find also that the “jointed pump shaft” mentioned in clause 4 of claim 9, the “actuating shaft” mentioned in clause 3 of claim 13, and the “line shaft” mentioned in clause 4 of claim 20, perform the same function, the preferred form of which is declared by the specification to he made in sections “which are attached together by means of sliding keys so as to allow of some vertical play with relation to each other.”

[468]*468We find, also, that the combination with a “pump casing” mentioned in clause 2 of claim 9, the “closed casing surrounding the pump shaft” mentioned in clause S of claim 9, the “sectional casing” mentioned in clause 4 of claim 13, the “casing being closed at the top” in clause 8 of claim 13, and the “well casing” of clause 2, claim 20, by which the pump is “entirely closed off from the water in the well” mentioned in the last two words of clause 4 and in clause 5 of claim 20, perform the same function, the preferred form of which is declared by the specification to be made in joints of any desired length, with stuffing box at surface of ground at top of pump, so that by the use of the packing boxes an air-tight chamber can be maintained.

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Bluebook (online)
276 F. 465, 1921 U.S. App. LEXIS 2105, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/western-well-works-inc-v-layne-bowler-corp-ca9-1921.