Columbus Chain Co. v. Standard Chain Co.

• Decision Date: 20 October 1906
• Docket Number: 1,532.
• Citation: 148 F. 622
• Parties: COLUMBUS CHAIN CO. v. STANDARD CHAIN CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

148 F. 622

COLUMBUS CHAIN CO. v. STANDARD CHAIN CO.

No. 1,532.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

October 20, 1906

C. C Shepherd, for appellant.

Melville Church, for appellee.

Before LURTON and SEVERENS, Circuit Judges, and COCHRAN, District judge.

COCHRAN District Judge.

This is an appeal from a decree dismissing a bill filed to enjoin the infringement of letters patent No. 620,826 granted to Daniel Carroll, March 14, 1899, and assigned to appellant complainant below, April 19, 1900. The answer put in issue both the validity of the patent and its infringement.

The patent is for a device for imparting uniform dimensions to chain-links, i.e., internally. Many chains, such, for instance, as pulley and crane chains which run over toothed wheels or have to fit into pockets or depressions on the face of wheels, require that the links thereof be internally of exactly equal lengths. It is to secure this result that the device covered by the patent is intended. It is a punch with two distinguishing features. One is a slightly tapering head adapted to enter and fill the ends of a chain-link; the other, a channel in one of its faces to permit free movement therein of one arm of the adjoining link, It is thus set forth in claim 1 of the patent, which is the claim thereof alleged to have been infringed:

'In a device for regulating the dimensions of chain-links, a punch having a slightly tapering head, adapted to enter and fill the ends of a chain-link, said punch head having a channel in one of its facts to permit the free movement therein of one arm of an adjoining link substantially as and for the purpose specified.'

A detailed view or perspective of the upper portion of the punch is shown by figure 5 of the drawings, which is as follows:

(Image Omitted)

A similar view of a slightly modified form of the punch, the modification consisting in a substantially bifurcated end portion thereof, is shown by figure 6 of the drawings, which is as follows: (Image Omitted)

The operation of the device consists in forcing the chain-links previously formed down over the punch, and then removing them therefrom, or it may consist in the reverse of this, i.e., in forcing the punch into the chain-links and then removing it therefrom. The result of the operation of the device in either way is that the internal dimensions of all the links in a chain are made identical and uniform. To secure this operation, the drawings and specification of the patent contemplate that the device shall be used in connection with an ordinary foot, hand, or power press. They set forth an arrangement of the press so as to secure the operation of the device in the first of the two ways stated. Figure 1 of the drawings is a side elevation of the parts of the press, which come in contact with the device; the device in place and the chain being formed. It is as follows:

(Image Omitted)

3 is the punch; 1 the base block to which it is attached; 12 the slide arm of the press which forces the previously formed chain-link down over the punch; and 6 the stripper plate, the elevation of which removes the chain-link from the punch. In practice it seems that the device is operated in this way rather than in the reverse way. It accomplishes the intended result successfully. The evidence discloses several ways of accomplishing such result prior to its use, but they were crude, and, as compared with them, it saves much labor. It is therefore a useful and valuable device.

The defense of noninfringement was based upon the fact that appellee's punch, instead of having a channel in one of its facts to permit free movement therein of the adjoining link, is separated into two parts, with a central space between them, in which one arm of the adjoining link can have such movement. It is urged that the patentee, Carroll, limited his device to a punch having a channel in one of its faces, and, as appellee's punch does not have such channel, there has been no infringement. The following authorities are cited in support of this position: Merrill v. Yeomans, 94 U.S. 568, 24 L.Ed. 235; Burns v. Meyer, 100 U.S. 671, 25 L.Ed. 738; Railway Co. v. Mellon, 104 U.S. 112, 26 L.Ed. 639; Sutter v. Robinson, 119 U.S. 530, 7 Sup.Ct. 376, 30 L.Ed. 492; McClain v. Ortmayer, 141 U.S. 419, 12 Sup.Ct. 76, 35 L.Ed. 800; Cimiotti Co. v. American Fur Refining Co., 198 U.S. 399, 25 Sup.Ct. 697, 49 L.Ed. 1100; Harriss v. Allen (C.C.) 15 F. 106; Western & Wells Co. v. Rosenstock (C.C.) 30 F. 67; Kinzel v. Luttrall Brick Co. et al., 67 F. 926, 15 C.C.A. 82; Seabury v. Johnson (C.C.) 76 F. 456; Schrieber & Conchar Mfg. Co. v. Adams, 117 F. 830, 54 C.C.A. 128; Hale v. World Mfg. Co., 127 F. 964, 62 C.C.A. 596.

On the other hand, it is urged that the space in appellee's punch is nothing more than a continuation of the channel in appellant's punch, and differs from its modified form, as shown in figure 6, in degree only. And see the decision of this court in the case of Standard Caster Wheel Co. v. Caster Locket Co., 113 F. 162, 168, 169, 51 C.C.A. 109. We do not find it necessary to dispose of the question thus raised, inasmuch as we think that the defense of invalidity of the patent has been made out, and it was on this ground that the lower court dismissed the bill.

The patent is invalid because it was anticipated. To establish anticipation a number of prior United States patents were introduced in evidence by appellee, and its expert, after a consideration thereof, gave it as his opinion that the subject-matter defined by claim 1 of the patent in suit was disclosed in its entirety therein. To the same end a Swiss patent, No. 9,592, issued to Heinrich Goerke, December 27, 1894, was so introduced. It is this patent which the lower court held invalidated the patent in suit. With this conclusion we agree, and in view of this we have given no consideration to the United States patents relied on. The device covered by that patent contains a punch, and the punch which it contains has the two distinguishing features of appellant's punch, to wit, a slightly tapering head adapted to enter and fill the ends of a chain-link, and a channel in one of its faces to permit the free movement therein of one arm of an adjoining link. It is operated in the same way, and it is intended to and does accomplish the same result. It is operated in connection with two dies-- an upper or hammer die, and a lower or anvil die. The upper surface of the lower or anvil die is provided with a half round groove, corresponding accurately with a chain-link, and from the middle thereof the punch described as cone-shaped, and in the alternative as a wedge, arises, corresponding exactly on its outside, save in front, with the inner curvature of the chain-link, and having a groove or channel in front to partly receive the next to the last chain-link. The under surface of the upper die is provided with a grove corresponding to the groove in the lower die, and the part lying within it is hollowed out into a wedge-shaped or conical recess, corresponding to the punch of the lower die. For the reception of the next to the last link between the two dies, recesses are provided. Figures 9 and 10 of the drawings of the patent are respectively a vertical section and an inverted plan view of the upper die. They are as follows:

(Image Omitted)

Figures 11 and 12 thereof are similar view of the lower die. They are as follows:

(Image Omitted)

The result intended to be accomplished by the device covered by the Goerke patent is broader, however, than that intended to be accomplished by the device to the Carroll patent. That intended to be accomplished by the latter, as we have seen, is the bringing of all the links of a chain to a predetermined, fixed, or standard internal dimension. That intended to be accomplished by the former is not only this, but at the same time to weld the links. Appellant's expert testified that it related primarily to the art of welding chain-links. This is hardly correct, but, whether so or not, it had distinctly in view the securing of uniformity in the internal dimensions of chain-links. The device covered by the patent is referred to in the title as a 'swaging machine for the production of calibrated chains. ' The specification opens with a description of devices to the prior art, and refers to them as tools theretofore 'known for calibrating and correcting chains which require accurate spacing, i.e., links of exactly equal lengths,' and, after stating that these devices were not satisfactory, goes on to say:

'I have therefore invented the chain-dimensioning swaging machine, which is represented in two embodiments in the accompanying drawings.'

The description given above of the device is in the second of those two embodiments, and is referred to as a modification of the first one. For our purpose it is not necessary to set forth the first embodiment. But the description of the device in that embodiment shows that, as thus used, it was intended to dimension internally the chain-links. As, for instance, it is said:

'The chain-link which is to be welded, and at the same time dimensioned, is placed upon the punch H of the lower die in a ready to weld and still hot condition; and the upper die is then brought down upon the lower die and the chain link lying thereon until the two dies lie close on one another. * * * The link to be welded thereupon not only takes the exact recessed form of the two dies, but also has its length accurately determined.'

In the description given of the device in the second embodiment, no mention is made of the result intended to be accomplished by its use therein, but there can be no doubt that it was to dimension internally as well as weld the chain-links.

...