Beach v. American Box-Machine Co.
| Decision Date | 15 October 1894 |
| Docket Number | 6,170. |
| Citation | 63 F. 597 |
| Parties | BEACH v. AMERICAN BOX-MACHINE CO. et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York |
Benjamin F. Lee and John Dane, Jr., for complainant.
Edmund Wetmore and William A. Redding, for defendants.
This action is founded upon reissued letters patent No. 11,167 granted to the complainant May 26, 1891, for a machine for attaching stays to the corners of paper or strawboard boxes. The application for the original was filed June 10, 1885. The original No. 447,225, was dated February 24, 1891. The application for the reissue was filed April 9, 1891. Prior to the invention it had been customary, says the patentee, to apply the fastening strips over the joints at the corners of the boxes, and paste them there, by hand. This work is now done by the patented machine. The claims involved are as follows :
It will be observed that the first, second and third claims cover combinations designed only to fasten a stay strip over the joints on the outside corner of the box, while the fourth, fifth and seventh claims cover the additional feature whereby the stay strip is folded over the edge of the box and pasted on the inside as well as on the outside of the corner. The elements of the combination of the first claim are: First. Opposing clamping dies having diverging working faces and constructed to co-operate in pressing adhesive stay strips upon an interposed box corner. Second. A feeding mechanism to deliver the stay strips between said clamping dies. Third. A pasting mechanism for rendering adhesive the stay strips. The second claim omits the pasting mechanism of the first claim, repeats, substantially, the remaining elements of the first claim and adds thereto a cutter for severing the continuous strip into stay strips of suitable length to be applied to the box corner to be stayed. The third claim is, in substance, a combination of all the elements of the two preceding claims. The elements of the combination of the fourth claim are: First. The opposing clamping dies of the preceding claims. Second. A movable plunger or strip bender to bend downwardly or inwardly the projecting end of the stay strip. Third. The anvil die, movable out of and into its usual working position so that it may engage and carry inside of the box corner the projecting end of the stay strip. The fifth claim is substantially the same as the fourth, the only difference being that the anvil die is described as having 'a reciprocatory motion in a direction parallel with the box corner. ' The seventh claim adds to the combination of the fourth and fifth claims the feeding mechanism of the first three claims and the cutter of the second and third claims.
The defenses are, lack of novelty and invention; noninfringement of the fourth, fifth and seventh claims; unlawful expansion of claims in the patent office by amendment; invalidity of the reissue as such, it being the same, in all important respects, as the original; and failure to prove infringement, except as to the defendant Horace Inman.
The application was nearly six years in the patent office. Although placed in interference with five different claimants who contested the complainant's right with unusual pertinacity, he was successful over them all, at every stage of the controversy. Not content with the adverse decision of the patent office officials two of the contestants, one them a defendant here, sought to have the complainant's patent canceled and awarded to them through the instrumentality of a court of equity. They were again defeated. What the machine of the patent does is this: an ordinary pasteboard blank is inserted between the clamping dies and it emerges a completed box, its corners being stayed by strips which have been firmly pasted to the box on the outside, the projecting end being then neatly folded over and attached to the inside also. The corners of the box are adjusted in the dies by the operator-- all else is automatic. The box thus made is properly shaped, its corners are reinforced and made strong, and much heavier material is used, owing to the greater force which is applied, than is possible in a hand-stayed box. The machine is much more rapid than the hand process; it increases the production from four to ten fold. It does cheaper, cleaner, stronger, straighter and smoother work than that done by hand. Less material is used, the boxes are more uniform, artistic and symmetrical and are delivered from the machine ready for immediate use. The Beach machine, or one embodying the principle of his invention with some minor improvements added, at once became popular and ousted the hand process and the wire stapling method in many of the larger establishments. It has taken the market, become almost indispensable to the trade and, according to the weight of testimony, has made successful competition well-nigh impossible. This evidence is objected to because it is said that the machine to which the witnesses chiefly referred was the Knowlton and Beach machine, which contains several patented improvements made by Knowlton. I am convinced that though this machine is an improvement upon the original, it contains the basic idea of the Beach structure, and it is this, and not the subsequent changes, which makes it popular. It would be illogical, in such cases, to attribute success to the nonessential, and not to the essential, features. Cochrane v. Deener, 94 U.S. 780, 787; Mergenthaler Linotype Co. v. Press Pub. Co., 57 F. 502, 505, 506.
But without the proof of the popularity of the machine there is ample evidence in the record to sustain the invention. The inventor does not pretend to be the first who attached stays of paper or muslin to the corners of paper boxes. The patent expressly admits that this had previously been done by hand. He does insist that he was the first to do this by machinery and asks only for a construction broad enough to prevent others from using his machine, or its equivalent. He asks nothing more. This statement of the complainant's position disposes of a large number of the exhibits offered by the defendants. These would be of value if a construction were sought covering the entire art of box-making, but such is not the case. The defendants have introduced 47 patents showing improvements in machines for making boxes, for inserting wire staples, for flanging boiler plates, for sticking labels and revenue stamps, for bending stiffeners for the heels of shoes and for applying shoe-button fasteners. It is conceded by the defendant's expert that none of these anticipates, and, as the counsel for the complainant admitted at the argument that the elements of the combinations, considered...
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