Gerrard v. Cary

• Decision Date: 16 June 1925
• Docket Number: No. 348.,348.
• Citation: 9 F.2d 957
• Parties: GERRARD et al. v. CARY et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

9 F.2d 957 (1925)

GERRARD et al. v. CARY et al.

No. 348.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

June 16, 1925.

Darby & Darby, of New York City (Samuel E. Darby, of New York City, of counsel), for appellants.

Drury W. Cooper, of New York City, W. O. Belt, of Chicago, Ill., and H. I. Bernhard, of New York City, for appellees.

Before ROGERS, MANTON, and HAND, Circuit Judges.

MANTON, Circuit Judge.

This suit was brought for infringement of patent No. 1,466,334, granted August 28, 1923, on an application filed June 14, 1922. Claims 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 are relied upon. The invention relates to a machine for straightening, swaging, and cutting wires into predetermined lengths, and has for its object to improve the construction of somewhat similar machines that have been theretofore used. The invention is said to consist in the novel details of a construction and combination of parts disclosed in the specifications and claims. The machine is used in the art of tying packages with wire. Baled ties and plain wire ties had been extensively used prior to the grant of the patent in suit. The appellants had been using wire and selling tools for applying such wire long prior to the invention. Between 1915 and 1918, a machine was used which twisted the wires together to secure the wire on the package. This and other machines used plain wire without the notch or flattened portion which is now impressed in the end of the wire by the machine constructed under the patent in suit. The machine known as the Wells, constructed under the Hoefer patent, which was issued in 1913 and which had expired prior to the appellants entering the field, had been used. The invention is broadly to make a machine for straightening, swaging, or cutting wires, but it is an improvement in the construction of the Wells machine, and this is the extent of the claim of the appellants.

Claim 1 comprises in combination (1) a means to straighten the wire as it travels from the coil to the machine (as in the Wells machine of the Hoefer patent); (2) means to receive the lengths of wire as they are cut; (3) the power shaft; (4) a cam loose on the power shaft; (5) means to connect said means with said cam, being a clutch; (6) a lever arm actuated by said cam; (7) a swaging die on the lever; (8) a co-operating swaging die employed on the stationary anvil, and (9) a cutting die. Claim 2 provides for a pedestal having a face through which said wire is fed which is a frame A and a cutting die K of the Hoefer patent, and which moves over said pedestal face as the claim specifies. Claim 3 includes the wire-feeding means which are the wire-feeding rolls of the Hoefer patent, and the claim specifies the lever arm as a free end, moving in the are of a circle like the lever arm J of the Hoefer patent. Claim 5 provides for the cam as an actuating means, and refers to the lever arm as a means controlled by said actuating means. Claim 6 differs little from claim 5. With the exception of the swaging dies, all of these claims read on the Hoefer patent.

The Wells machine was geared to operate at about 600 revolutions per minute on the fly wheel and 2,800 to 2,900 revolutions on the straightener, delivering 75 to 80 feet of cut length wire per minute. The machine was operated satisfactorily to produce plain wire, but apparently had not been used to produce swaged wire. Appellants speeded up the machine to get a greater production. The fly wheel, the straightener, the feed rolls, and the rocking lever arm which carries the dies, were co-ordinated in the original Wells machine so that there would be no material lag of the wire while the cutting die was passing across the orifice to sever the wire and back again. There was considerable difficulty in obtaining this speed and operation, and the experimental work covered a period of months, but the...