Wilson v. McCormick Harvesting Mach. Co.

92 F. 167, 34 C.C.A. 280, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2121
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedFebruary 16, 1899
DocketNo. 427
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 92 F. 167 (Wilson v. McCormick Harvesting Mach. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wilson v. McCormick Harvesting Mach. Co., 92 F. 167, 34 C.C.A. 280, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2121 (7th Cir. 1899).

Opinion

WOODS, Circuit Judge,

after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

Our conclusion is that the court below was right in deciding “that, in view of such limitations as ought to be put upon the complainants’ patent, the defendant’s device does not infringe.” It would be impossible, within the reasonable limits of an opinion, to follow counsel through hundreds of pages of brief in the discussion of the evidence found in the three large volumes which constitute the printed record. We content ourself with a presentation of propositions which are thought to determine the merits of the appeal.

[173]*173The first claim, though not in issue, it is to be observed, does not include the lever, I, and connects the spring-sheave with the chain “between the lever and the hinge-bar.”

The second claim includes expressly the lever, I, and other parts, designated by letters, except the spring-sheave, B, which is included by implication only, if at all. The implication, if admissible, may arise from the requirement that the chain, E, have “a yielding support,” and that there shall be a “mechanism for adjusting the chain and securing it in any desired position.” “A yielding support” for the chain, it is evident, might be found in other forms than the spring-sheave described. It might be simply a wheel, or a pulley; but, in order both to support the chain and secure it in any desired position, the spring-sheave, with its sprocket projections, and the lever, G-, or the full equivalents thereof, would seem to be necessary. That this claim is not infringed is clear, not only because the “mechanism for adjusting the chain and securing it in any desired position” is not to be found in the defendant’s machine, but because there is nothing in that machine which can be adjusted, and so held, as to operate like the chain of the patent in suit. That chain is adjusted and held in position not solely by the lever, G, called the adjusting and lifting lever, but also by the action of the spring-sheave and its sprocket projections, the combined result of which is, as stated in the specification, that “it [the spring-sheave] does not interfere with the direct action of the lever, G-, in raising and lowering the finger-bar and in sustaining it at the proper height; for, since it is coupled to the chain, E, between the said lever and the hinge-bar, it acts freely to balance and lift on the finger-bar, thereby rendering the draft of the same light, the' part of the chain between the sheave and the lever, G, allowing a slack as well as a taut chain while the machine is at work; but at the same time the finger-bar is firmly sustained all the time by ihe lever, (I, just the same as if the spring-sheave were not applied at all.” There are here features of construction, adjustment, and operation which not only cannot be found in the machine of the defendant, but cannot be introduced without a reconstruction which would destroy its identity. The chain, either slack or taut, between the spring-sheave and the adjusting and lifting lever, G, with its segment, H, and the consequent effect upon the operation of the entire mechanism, are the characteristics which must have been deemed to make the combination patentable.

The third claim is a specific one for the combination of the parts designated by the letters E, B, I, andL, “operating together, substantially as and for the purpose herein described.” The hinge-bar, F, is not mentioned, and can be included only by implication. Is the implication necessary or justifiable? The lever, 1, to be anything more than a prolongation of the chain, must, of course, have a fuicrum; but that might be provided in many ways. It might, for instance, be a fixed pivot secured to the frame of the machine, or a pivot supported by springs or otherwise, so as not to be rigidly fixed and unyielding, and, on that account:, perhaps better adapted to serve its purpose. It is therefore to be presumed that the claim was not intended to be [174]*174restricted to the hinge-bar, F, but to include any form of fulcrum which might be found available; that is to say, any form which would enable the parts mentioned to “operate together substantially as and for the purpose specified.” Anything less would not meet the requirements of the claim. If a fulcrum cannot be supplied by implication, the claim is perhaps void, because it does not show an operative device; but that the hinge-bar, F, expressly included in the second claim, cannot be read into the third, where it is not mentioned, seems to be clear. In McCarty v. Railroad Co., 160 U. S. 110, 116, 16 Sup. Ct. 240, 242, it was suggested that a feature of construction described in the specification should be read into the claims for the purpose of sustaining the patent, but the court said:

“While this may be done with a view of showing the connection in which a device is used, and proving that it is an operative device, we know of no principle of law which would authorize us to read into a claim an element which is not present, for the purpose of making out a ease of novelty or infringement. The difficulty is that, if we once begin to include elements not mentioned in the claim, in order to limit such claim and avoid a defense of anticipation, we should never know where to stop. If, for example, a prior device were produced, exhibiting the combination of these claims plus the springs, the patentee might insist upon reading some other element into the claims — -such, for instance, as the side frames, and all the other operative portions of the mechanism constituting the car truck — to prove that the prior device was not an anticipation. It might also require us to read into the fourth claim the flanges and pillar's described in the third. This doctrine is too obviously untenable" to require argument.”

So bere, if it be conceded, on grounds of necessity, that the hinge-bar, F, is to be included in the claim, it is equally necessary, in order that the parts named shall operate, together with that bar, “substantially as and for the purpose specified,” that the lifting-lever, G-, be also included. Indeed, that lever, as an auxiliary to the spring-sheave, is more important to the complete accomplishment of the declared purposes of the invention than is the hinge-bar, F, which, as we have seen, could be substituted by other means. “This,” says the specification, “is an important feature, since the spring-sheave could not be relied on of itself to sustain the finger-bar, and prevent its plunging into the. ground on meeting an obstruction. * * * When the forward end of the chain is secured to the lever, G-, or its segment, the whole device is complete, and ready for operation.” To demonstrate this, it is only necessary to refer to the perspective drawing intended to show equivalency between the bell-crank lever found in the defendant’s machine and the spring-sheave in the Smith patent, from which, it will be observed, the lever, <3-, is omitted. But for the present purpose let it be assumed that the third claim does not include that lever, or its equivalent. So construed, the claim is for the combination of .the lifting-chain, E, the spring-sheave, B, the lever, I (having for a fulcrum the hinge-bar, F), and the finger-bar, L, operating together substantially as and for the purpose stated, in so far (it must be further implied) as they may so operate without the aid of the lifting-lever, GL The several parts named, even if operative without the lever, are not in the appellee’s machine.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
92 F. 167, 34 C.C.A. 280, 1899 U.S. App. LEXIS 2121, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wilson-v-mccormick-harvesting-mach-co-ca7-1899.