George Ertel Co. v. Stahl

• Citation: 65 F. 519
• Decision Date: 18 January 1895
• Docket Number: 202.
• Parties: GEORGE ERTEL CO. v. STAHL.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

65 F. 519

GEORGE ERTEL CO. v. STAHL.

No. 202.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

January 18, 1895

George H. Knight and Melville Church, for appellant.

L. H Berger and Sprigg, Anderson & Vandeventer, for appellee.

Before WOODS and JENKINS, Circuit Judges, and BAKER, District Judge.

JENKINS Circuit Judge.

This is a suit brought to restrain the alleged infringement of letters patent No. 215,070, issued May 6, 1879, to Edward S Renwick, for 'improvement in chicken brooders,' and of another patent, not here involved. The court below, on the 4th day of August, 1894, issued an injunction pendente lite restraining the appellant from manufacturing or selling or offering for sale or advertising its 'Improved Victor Brooder,' declared to infringe the device patented to Renwick. The propriety of the restraint thus imposed is brought before us for review by this appeal. The patent is a combination patent. The leading features of the invention are stated by the patentee to be a warm floor for the chickens to rest upon in place of the cold floor of former devices, and the ventilation of the brooding chamber with warm air, in place of the lack of ventilation in older devices. This result he assumes to accomplish by means of a hot air chamber placed beneath the floor, and wherein the air is heated by artificial means, and is permitted to enter the brooding chamber through the perforated floor forming in whole or in part the bottom of the brooding chamber. In other words, the artificially heated air passes into the chamber in substantially the same manner that heated air is admitted into a room in a house, by means of a register in the floor. The four claims of the patent each embrace the perforated floor in combination with different parts of the device. The alleged infringing device is constructed under and in conformity with letters patent No. 501,775, issued July 18, 1893, to George Ertel for 'brooder.' This latter device furnishes warm air to the brooding chamber in the following manner: Fresh air is caused to pass over a water tank containing water artificially heated, and is thereby warmed, and is thence conducted into a drum, which extends from the tank into the brooding chamber, and through openings in the top of the drum escapes into the chamber. The appellant contends that the principle of the Renwick patent is to keep the feet of the chicken warm by means of heat entering the chamber through the perforated floor; while, on the other hand, the appellant's invention is bottomed upon a principle, asserted to be in accordance with natural law, of keeping the feet of the chicken cool and the head warm, accomplished by introducing the warm air at the top of the brooding chamber, and that, therefore, there is no infringement. It is also insisted that Renwick's invention is anticipated by the patent to Napoleon E. Guerin No. 3,019, dated March 30, 1843, for an artificial method of raising chickens. Upon the other hand, it is insisted that the appellant's device is a mere evasion; that the floor of appellant's brooder is made of thin board, which absorbs and radiates the heat communicated to it from the water tank beneath; that while in the one the perforations are flush with the floor, and in the other are at the top of the closed drum, the operation and function are the same, because...