Cleveland Foundry Co. v. Detroit Vapor Stove Co.

• Decision Date: 14 May 1904
• Docket Number: 1,262.
• Citation: 131 F. 853
• Parties: CLEVELAND FOUNDRY CO. et al. v. DETROIT VAPOR STOVE CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

131 F. 853

CLEVELAND FOUNDRY CO. et al. v. DETROIT VAPOR STOVE CO.

No. 1,262.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

May 14, 1904

Thos B. Hall, Thomas W. Bakewell, and John R. Bennett, for appellants.

Parker & Burton, for appellee.

Before LURTON, SEVERNS, and RICHARDS, Circuit Judges.

SEVERNS Circuit Judge, having made the preceding statement, .

The patent which is now in question is for the basic or generic invention of Jeavons, upon which he devised several improvements which were the subjects of other patents enumerated in the foregoing statement, and which have fallen out of the contest. His application for it was filed December 20, 1888. He stated therein that his invention related to hydrocarbon burners, and consisted in the method of construction described by him in his specifications. He recognizes the previous constructions, and their manner of use, in the language following which we copy, believing that it fairly states the existing conditions at the date of his application. He says:

'In the construction and operation of burners prior to my invention, different ways of obtaining a distribution of hydrocarbon oils or vapors or carbureted air have been known, among which may be mentioned: First, the distribution of oil by capillary attraction, as by a wick in which the oil is drawn to the surface of a wick and consumed, as in an ordinary lamp. In this style of cases vaporization occurs directly at the point of combustion, and the oil itself is distributed. Secondly, by spraying the oil by means of a jet of air or steam under pressure. Thirdly, by generating the vapor in a suitable retort, in which the vapor is subjected to a head or pressure, and depending on the artificial pressure in the retort to distribute or feed the vapor. This style of burner is exemplified in the well-known vapor burner which feeds through a jet orifice. Fourthly, by evaporating or vaporizing gasoline or other light hydrocarbon on an exposed surface by passing a current of air over the same and then feeding the carbureted air to the burner the old and well-known carbureting devices being of this class.'

He then proceeds to state that his own method, differing from those above described, involves, first, the conversion of the oil into vapor by exposing the oil to a heated surface, and then distributing or conveying the vapor by its gravity to the place or places where or about which the vapor is supplied to the burner and maintains combustion. His explanation of his method and the means devised by him to accomplish it are somewhat lengthy, and we epitomize so much of it as seems necessary to understand the claim. To do this we insert Fig. 1 of the drawings, which shows one, and probably the most generally used form of his burners, in central vertical section.

(Image Omitted)

C and D are two perforated concentric metallic cylinders resting on a base shown below them. Around the inner side of the base is a circular trough, closed on the outside, but opening upward into the space between the cylinders. This trough is seen at the right and left hand in the base. The asbestos rope, L, lies in the bottom of it. The oil is admitted into the trough through the tube, H, and is controlled by the valve, the stem of which is K. In operation, when oil or gasoline is used, enough is let in to saturate the asbestos cord, L, which being lighted heats up the trough. The oil as it comes out of the tube, H, is immediately vaporized by the heat, and, the vapor being two or three times heavier than air, sinks and flows around in the trough and fills it. The oil expanding into vapor fills several hundred times its own space, and as the latter piles up, so to speak, it passes into the perforated combustion tubes, when, on receiving the air through the perforations and being lighted, it burns with a blue flame ascending through the top of the cylinders, where its combustion is ended. The trough is kept hot by the conductivity of the heated metal of the burner, and condensation of the vapor on the bottom is thereby prevented. If the asbestos is employed for the initial heating up, it is not longer used after the process is under way. The patentee lays stress upon the fact that as the vapor is formed it falls by gravity and flows around through the trough, whereby an even foundation or source of supply throughout the entire circuit or length of the trough is secured, and, by consequence, an even flame in all parts of the combustion chamber. This is the purpose of constructing the parts in such form as that the trough shall be on a level below the entrance of the oil where the vaporizing takes place. We are satisfied that this is substantially the manner in which the vapor is distributed and supplied to the combustion chamber. It is evidently so for a time, at least, after the beginning of the vaporizing, and is probably true in a modified degree after the trough is filled by the vapor.

The claim is here set forth:

'A hydrocarbon vapor burner, consisting of a vapor holder constructed for the free and uniform distribution of the vapor therein by gravity, and having a free opening for the escape of vapor, in combination with perforated combustion walls having a flame space between them, in communication with the said holder, substantially as described.'

The court below found difficulty in believing that the principle of gravity had anything to do with the operation of the burner, and was disposed to discard the theory of the patentee, on which his apparatus was constructed, as unfounded. But the fact is that, by constructing the burner in the manner prescribed by him, the vapor is produced and distributed to and in the combustion chamber in a very satisfactory and useful way. That it is a successful improvement on all former methods is shown by the general adoption of it by the public, no less than 122,000 burners of this kind having been sold within 2 1/2 years. It may be that the patentee did not fully understand the rationale of the manner in which his construction effected the results. And it may be that the expert witnesses have not in all respects correctly apprehended it. But if the fact be that his construction does effect the results, and they are beneficial, he is none the less entitled to the benefit of his invention though he may not have correctly understood the principles of its operation. Andrews v. Cross, 19 Blatchf. 294, 8 F. 269, per Judge (afterward Justice) Blatchford, approved in the Driven Well Case, Eames v. Andrews, 122 U.S. 40-55, 7 S.Ct. 1073, 30 L.Ed. 1064; Walker on Patents (4th Ed.) Sec. 175, and cases there cited.

Certain prior patents are cited as anticipations of Jeavons' supposed invention. We will examine them in the order of their dates. First in this order are three patents to Morrill: No. 18,465, dated October 20, 1857; No. 44,548 dated October 4, 1864; and No. 60,224, dated December 4, 1866. These were burners having a wick rising out of an oil reservoir. The oil was carried up by the wick, and the combustion was at its upper end on the instant of vaporization at that point. The resemblance of the structures covered by these patents, and their mode of operation, to that of the Jeavons patent, is so slight as not to require discussion. They belong to the wick-burner class, and the differences are radical. The next is a patent to Brown, No. 60,680, dated January 1, 1867, which is also a wick burner belonging to the same class as the 1877, was for an improvement on a former vapor burner invented by him which is not shown. Whether it was designed for using any heavier kind of fluid than gas or gasoline, we do not know. From the indications, we should suppose not. However this may be, he did not make any provision for taking down the vapor after it was generated into the trough below for distribution by gravity, nor was any such thing contemplated by him. In his device the vapor, was formed as the fluid ascended, and the combustion took place in the chamber where the fluid was vaporized. The vapor was generated simultaneously all around the chamber, and not at one point, as in the Jeavons...