Eibel Process Co v. Minnesota Ontario Paper Co 1923
Decision Date | 19 February 1923 |
Docket Number | No. 178,178 |
Citation | 261 U.S. 45,43 S.Ct. 322,67 L.Ed. 523 |
Parties | EIBEL PROCESS CO. v. MINNESOTA & ONTARIO PAPER CO. Argued Jan. 5-8, 1923 |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This was a bill in equity charging the infringement of a patent and seeking an injunction, an accounting and damages. The patent, No. 845,224, issued to William Eibel, February 26, 1907. The application was filed August 22, 1906. The specifications de cribe the patent as for an improvement for Fourdrinier machines for paper making, and say that 'it has for its object to construct and arrange the machine whereby it may be run at a very much higher speed than heretofore and produce a more uniform sheet of paper which is strong, even and well formed.' The contention of the plaintiff, the petitioner here, is that his improvement was an important step in the art of paper making, and increased the daily product from 20 to 30 per cent.
The patent was held void by the District Court for the Western District of New York in the Case of Eibel Process Co. v. Remington-Martin Co., 226 Fed. 766 (1914). On appeal, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the decree of dismissal in the District Court, sustained the patent, and found infringement of claims Nos. 1, 2 and 3, but did not pass upon claims Nos. 7, 8 and 12. 234 Fed. 624, 148 C. C. A. 390 (1916). The bill in the present case was filed in the District Court for Maine, January 1, 1917. That court in 1920 held the patent valid and entered a decree of injunction and for damages. 267 Fed. 847. On appeal, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed the decree and directed the dismissal of the bill, 274 Fed. 540 (1921). Because of the conflict in the two circuits, certiorari was granted to review the latter decree.
The Fourdrinier machine has for many years been well known and most widely used for making news print paper. Its main feature is an endless wire cloth sieve passed over a series of rolls at a constant speed. The sieve known as the 'wire' is woven with 60 or 70 meshes to the inch. It may be 70 feet or more in length, and is often more than 100 inches in width. Its working surface, with the total length of 70 feet, is about 30 feet; the rest being taken up in the return of the wire underneath. At what is called the 'breast roll,' at one end of the machine, there is discharged upon the wire, from a flow box or pond, a constant stream of papermaking stock of fibers of wood pulp mixed with from 135 to 200 times their weight of water of the consistency and fluidity of diluted milk. As this stream moves along the wire, the water drains through its meshes and the fibers are deposited thereon. The process is stimulated by a device to shake the wire with constant and rapid sidewise thrusts, forward and back, which insures the proper interlocking and felting of the stock as it progresses; the water continuing to drain from it. At the end of the surface length of the wire, the stock reaches what are called the 'couch rolls,' between which it is pressed, and then in the form of a sheet of uniformly distributed pulp, felted sufficiently to hold together, it leaves the wire and is carried through a series of rolls or calendars by which the sheet is pressed and dried, and from which it emerges to be rolled up as finished paper.
In the flow box, or 'pond,' where the stream of pulp stock is stored, there is a gate or door, forming the end of the flow box, called the 'slice,' by lifting which the stock is given the opportunity to flow upon the wire. The stream thus issuing is given a width of the desired sheet of paper and a depth regulated by the height to which the slice is lifted. The stream on the wire is prevented from flowing off the sides by 'deckle straps,' which are thick rubber bands, resting on each side of the wire at each side of the pulp. Traveling with the wire, they form lateral walls confining the stock till it is too dry to flow. Between the breast roll, where the stream of liquid stock strikes the wire, and the couch rolls, at the end of the surface length of the wire, there is a series of parallel horizontal rolls supporting the wire, called table rolls, and 20 feet from the breast roll there are placed, under the wire and in contact with it, three suction boxes in succession, in which a partial vacuum is maintained, and through them is sucked out the greater part of the water remaining in the wet sheet of the pulp. Placed above the wire, and just beyond the first suction box, is what is called the 'dandy roll,' which is faced with wire cloth. Its office is to impress the upper surface of the forming sheet of paper and give it a texture similar to that which the lower surface of the paper has from its contact with the wire. It may also carry the design which is to give the watermark to the sheet, if such a mark is desired. Beyond this is a larger roll, called the 'guide roll,' arranged with an automatic device varying its axis, so as to keep the wire straight. From the guide roll the wire drops below the plane to the couch rolls, already referred to.
These machines are very large, some of them weighing more than 1,000,000 pounds, and their cost will range as high as $125,000. They are run night and day, in order that the capital invested in them may yield a proper return. Speed, which increases production, is therefore of the highest importance. Eibel's patent had for its avowed purpose of increase of this speed.
Eibel says in his specifications:
Two figures accompany the specifications of the Eibel patent. Figure No. 1 shows the wire of the Fourdrinier machine in outline from the breast roll to the guide and couch rolls, with a screw device for raising and lowering the breast roll and wire from the horizontal. The outline shows an elevation of the breast roll and wire, so that the angle between the wire and the horizontal at the guide roll is about 4 per cent., which in a surface length of 30 feet would mean an elevation of 12 inches at the breast roll. The other figure, No. 2, shows a device for regulating the speed of the wire applied at the lower couch roll.
Again the patentee says:
'For the purpose of increasing the speed of the machine to the maximum I maintain the breast roll end of the making wire at a high elevation above the level, so that the stock travels by gravity much faster than the making wire ordinarily runs for a certain grade of stock, and I then increase the speed of the machine to such extent as to bring the rate of speed of the making wire up to the speed of the rapidly moving stock, and as a result the capacity of the machine is largely increased.
The claims in question are:
1. A Fourdrinier machine, having the breast roll end of the paper-making wire maintained at a substantial elevation above the level, whereby the stock is caused to travel by gravity, rapidly in the direction of movement of the wire, and at a speed approximately equal to the speed of the wire, substantially as described.
2. A Fourdrinier machine having the breast roll end of the paper-making wire maintained at a high elevation whereby the stock is caused to travel by gravity faster than the normal speed of the wire for a certain grade of stock, and having means for increasing the speed of the machine to cause the wire to travel at substantially the same rate of speed as the rapidly-moving stock, substantially as described.
3. A Fourdrinier machine having the paper-making wire declined from the breast roll to the guide roll, the breast roll end of the wire being maintained at a substantial elevation above the level, whereby the stock is caused to travel by gravity, rapidly, in the direction of movement of the wire and at a speed approximately equal to the...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
Ab Iro v. Otex, Inc.
...a prompt and dramatic shift to the Tannert teaching. This is evidence of nonobviousness. Eibel Process Co. v. Minnesota & Ontario Paper Co. 261 U.S. 45, 54-56, 43 S.Ct. 322, 325, 67 L.Ed. 523 (1923); Marvel Specialty Co. v. Bell Hosiery Mills, Inc., 330 F.2d 164, 172 (4th Cir.), cert. denie......
-
International Carbonic Eng. Co. v. Natural Carb. Prod.
...675, 83 L.Ed. 1071; Deering v. Winona Harvester Works, 155 U.S. 286, 15 S.Ct. 118, 39 L.Ed. 153; Eibel Process Co. v. Minnesota & Ontario Paper Co., 261 U.S. 45, 43 S.Ct. 322, 67 L.Ed. 523; T. H. Symington Co. v. National Castings Co., 250 U.S. 383, 39 S.Ct. 542, 63 L.Ed. 1045; Smith v. Hal......
-
Delco Chemicals v. Cee-Bee Chemical Co.
...Corp. of America v. Radio Eng. Lab., 1934, 293 U.S. 1, 7-8, 54 S.Ct. 752, 78 L.Ed. 1453; Eibel Process Co. v. Minnesota & Ontario Paper Co., 1923, 261 U.S. 45, 60, 43 S.Ct. 322, 67 L.Ed. 523; The Barbed Wire Patent Washburn & Moen Mfg. Co. v. Beat 'Em All Barbed-Wire Co., 1892, 143 U.S. 275......
-
ADM Corp. v. Speedmaster Packaging Corp.
...A. J. Industries v. Dayton Steel Foundry Company, supra; Whiteman v. Mathews, supra; Smith v. Hall, supra; Eibel Co. v. Paper Co., 261 U.S. 45, 60, 43 S.Ct. 322, 67 L.Ed. 523 (1923). However, oral testimony of the inventor alone has been declared insufficient to establish prior use. Smith v......
-
Purdue OxyContin Patents Invalid Despite Stemming From Discovery Of Source Of Toxic Impurity
...the Federal Circuit distinguished the Supreme Court decision Purdue relied upon (Eibel Process Co. v. Minnesota & Ontario Paper Co., 261 U.S. 45 (1923)), because the problem [of the source of the 14-hydroxy] did not need to be solved to arrive at the claimed The issue again comes down ......
-
The Rosetta Stone for the doctrine of means-plus-function patent claims.
...the sometimes apparently conflicting instances of construing specifications and the finding of equivalents in alleged infringements. 261 U.S. 45, 63 (1923). See also Texas Instruments Inc. v. United States Int'l Trade Comm'n, 846 F.2d 1369, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (noting that pioneer status ......
-
Construing patent claims according to their "interpretive community": a call for an attorney-plus-artisan perspective.
...that the thing under inquiry may not really be an infringement...."). (162.) Eibel Process Co. v. Minn. & Ontario Paper Co., 261 U.S. 45, 63 (1923) (emphasis (163.) Cole v. Malleable Iron Fittings, 70 F.2d 686, 687 (2d Cir. 1934); cf. Kemart Corp. v. Printing Arts Res. Labs., 201 F.2d 6......
-
Chapter §2.04 Claim Definiteness Requirement
...to one of skill in the art when read in the context of the invention. See, e.g., Eibel Process Co. v. Minnesota & Ontario Paper Co., 261 U.S. 45, 65–66, 43 S.Ct. 322, 67 L.Ed. 523 (1923) (finding "substantial pitch" sufficiently definite because one skilled in the art "had no difficulty . .......
-
Secondary considerations: a structured framework for patent analysis.
...a technical reading of the statute to preclude patentability is improper.). (180) Eibel Process Co. v. Minn. & Ont. Paper Co., 261 U.S. 45 (1923) ("The fact that the Eibel pitch has thus been generally adopted ... and that the daily product ... has thus been increased at least twenty pe......