Byers Mach. Co. v. Keystone Driller Co.
| Decision Date | 05 November 1930 |
| Docket Number | No. 5433.,5433. |
| Citation | 44 F.2d 283 |
| Parties | BYERS MACH. CO. et al. v. KEYSTONE DRILLER CO. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
H. B. Fay, of Cleveland, Ohio (Fay, Oberlin & Fay and Harold B. Hood, all of Cleveland, Ohio, on the brief), for appellants.
F. O. Richey, of Cleveland, Ohio (Philip E. Siggers, of Washington, D. C., and Richey & Watts, of Cleveland, Ohio, on the brief), for appellee.
Before DENISON and HICKS, Circuit Judges, and SIMONS, District Judge.
This case involves alleged infringement of a ditching or excavating machine manufactured by the plaintiff and claimed to be protected by four patents, the patent to Clutter, No. 1,317,431, the patent to Wagner, No. 1,476,121, the patent to R. R. Downie, No. 1,511,114, and the second Downie patent, No. 1,543,250. Substantially all of the claims of the patents in suit are challenged on the ground of invalidity because of anticipation or lack of invention, and infringement is denied, except in the case of the second Downie patent, in respect to which infringement is admitted, coupled, however, with the claim that it involves an element of the device not important to its function, and copied inadvertently.
In order to have a broad, general view of the controversy, it is important to understand that the plaintiff's commercial machine, which it is claimed is protected by the patents, is, in its fully developed state, a digging machine operating upon the principle of a mechanical hoe or mattock, as distinguished from mechanical shovels, scoops, rakes, or skimmers. Its claimed outstanding advantages are that it can be operated successfully in digging in rock and other hard materials; that it can be operated with accuracy during both the digging and unloading operations by one man control; that it is a unitary structure that can be moved instantly in any one of four directions; that it is able to pick and break through a large percentage of rock that is usually found in fields of digging operations; and that it has thereby achieved important new results and improved old results in the trench-digging art.
The basic patent is the one to Clutter. If this patent is valid, it is entitled to a breadth of construction permitted to pioneers in any art. The other patents in suit relate to improvements in the several elements of the Clutter device of the class which usually follow the disclosure of new instrumentalities in their evolution toward perfection in doing the work originally contemplated. Admittedly the inventions involved in the patents in suit are combinations of old elements, but out of the combinations it is claimed there resulted a device capable of obtaining an entirely new result, and that the patentees contributed a machine of great usefulness and value to the industry.
Of the Clutter patent only claim 4 is alleged to be infringed. This claim discloses an excavating machine with (a) a pivoted boom, (b) a scoop-carrying member pivotally connected therewith, (c) a pulling member for elevating and lowering said boom, (d) a pivotal means carried by the boom and connecting the pulling member therewith and said scoop-carrying member, (e) a scoop connected with the scoop-carrying member and projecting toward the boom, and (f) a pulling member connected with said scoop. The patentee states that his invention relates to an excavating machine, and has for its object the provision of a simply constructed and operated mechanism for holding, elevating, and emptying the scoop, and which may be attached to any suitable machine available for the character of the work referred to, and points out more specifically that his invention consists mainly in the arrangement of the scoop, the scoop carrying member, and boom for the two pulling members, making it possible for the operator to extend the scoop beyond the end of the boom, to raise or lower the boom, or fill the scoop by manipulating the two pulling members. The patent is now challenged on the ground that its two principal advantages, (1) the ability to pick or break into hard ground, and (2) the ability to accurately spot the scoop over a given point for discharge, were not disclosed by the patentee. To this the plaintiff makes answer that all of the advantages of the Clutter device are not recited in the patent, but since all necessarily result from the operation of the machine, it was not necessary to recite them; that claim 4 sufficiently describes two pulling members which placed the monopoly of control in the hands of one operator, which is one of the main advantages claimed for Clutter. This court has held that the patentee is entitled to the benefit of every function within the scope of the claim and actually possessed by his mechanism even if he does not note it at the time of...
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