Detroit Stoker Co. v. Brownell Co.
| Decision Date | 07 April 1937 |
| Docket Number | No. 7020.,7020. |
| Citation | 89 F.2d 422 |
| Parties | DETROIT STOKER CO. v. BROWNELL CO. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
William J. Belknap, of Detroit, Mich. (Wood & Wood, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Laurence J. Whittemore and Clarence B. Zewadski, both of Detroit, Mich., on the brief), for appellant.
H. A. Toulmin, Jr., of Dayton, Ohio (H. A. Toulmin, of Dayton, Ohio, on the brief), for appellee.
Before MOORMAN, HICKS, and SIMONS, Circuit Judges.
Two patents for under-feed stokers were involved in the infringement suit brought by the appellant. The first was Trotter patent 1,552,968, granted September 8, 1925, and the second Beers patent 1,688,608, granted October 23, 1928. The bill was dismissed. With respect to Trotter no infringement was found, and the claims of Beers were held invalid.
The Trotter invention relates to under-feed stokers of the type in which the green fuel is fed longitudinally of a trough beneath the burning fuel and is gradually elevated into the zone of combustion. While the claims include other elements, the controversy here relates to the feeding mechanism. As in prior art, the stoker of Trotter is provided with a vertical hopper for the green fuel, disposed without the furnace and discharging into a trough shaped retort, the latter extending through the front of and into the furnace beneath the burning fuel. A ram traveling beneath the hopper pushes the coal forwardly along the retort and is adapted to be reciprocated. In its forward movement it pushes the coal ahead, gradually closing the bottom of the hopper to stop the discharge of green fuel therefrom. Upon its rearward movement the bottom of the hopper is opened and the fuel free to discharge onto the retort.
Various types of mechanism had been in use for reciprocating the ram. That adopted by Trotter is described as a crank shaft direct drive. This type employs a power driven crank shaft and a pitman rod which in its usual form has one end pivotally mounted upon a wrist pin in the ram and the other journaled upon a crank of the crank shaft. In so far as the claims of Trotter are in issue, they relate to an improvement which Trotter claims to have made in this type of direct drive mechanism. The rear end of the conventional pitman rod was directly engaged with the crank pin so that the rod was of fixed length and stroke. With such structure no adjustment of the stroke of the ram was permitted, and the pitman rod was at all times operatively connected both to the ram and the crank shaft, so that whenever the crank shaft rotated the ram was reciprocated. It is asserted that Trotter conceived certain objectives to be highly desirable in the operation of under-feed stokers. He wished to provide for a variation in the stroke of the ram so as to control the amount of green fuel fed forward by each reciprocation, to provide for permitting the ram to remain in its foward position closing the hopper without stopping the rotation of the crank shaft, and to accomplish these things while still retaining a direct thrust between the crank shaft and the ram. Having the ram in closed position and the pitman out of operation was of advantage where a battery of stokers driven from a common drive shaft was in operation, for it permitted one or more of the rams to be cut out without affecting the operation of the others. While these objectives are not all indicated in the specification it is, of course, axiomatic that the inventor is entitled to all of the uses to which his device may be put whether understood by him at the time or not. We are, however, primarily concerned with the means disclosed by Trotter for providing variation in the stroke of the ram, for, however meritorious may be the inventor's thought in terms of result, unless the means adopted in attaining such result are novel and denote invention, either separately or in combination, he may not have a valid patent, for we are dealing with a machine and not a method. Reo Motor Car Co. v. Gear Grinding Machine Co. (C.C.A.) 42 F.(2d) 965, 968.
To secure the desired variation in the stroke of the ram, Trotter provides a sleeved block slideably mounted upon the pitman rod and having an extended bearing portion that pivotally engages the crank. The forward movement of the block is limited by a fixed stop or pin, and the rearward movement by an adjustable stop or collar. The sliding block with a fixed forward stop permits the forward movement of the ram to remain constant and the adjustable rearward stop the varying of the rearward movement. Upon the thrust of the crank shaft the block actuates the rod when it engages the forward stop and so pushes the coal along the retort. The rear travel of the block withdraws the ram from the hopper when it reaches the second stop. It follows that the second stop may be so adjusted that the block will not engage it, in which case the ram is not withdrawn but remains in closed position. The lost motion thus provided permits the crank of a battery actuating shaft to continue operating without actuating selected rams of the battery.
For the driving mechanism thus briefly described Trotter was allowed three claims — 10, 11 and 12, which are in suit. Of...
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