Hoe v. Knap
| Decision Date | 22 March 1886 |
| Citation | 27 F. 204 |
| Parties | HOE and others v. KNAP and others. [1] |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
Offield & Towle and Munson & Philipp, for complainants, (B. F Thurston, of counsel.)
West & Bond, for defendants.
Complainants by this bill, seek an injunction and accounting for the alleged infringement by defendants of three patents owned by complainants; the first being patent No. 269,159, granted December 12, 1882, to Luther C. Crowell, for 'a sheet delivering mechanism for printing-machines;' the second being patent No. 211,848, granted to Richard M. Hoe, on February 4, 1879, for 'an improvement in paper-folding machines;' and the third being reissued patent No. 8,801, granted to complainants as assignees of Richard M. Hoe and Stephen D. Tucker, July 15, 1879, for an 'improvement in printing-machines;' the original patent having been granted December 1, 1868. All these patents, it is averred in the bill, have been duly assigned to complainants, and no question is made as to the title to either patent.
The Crowell patent is for a device whereby the sheets issuing successively from a web printing mechanism are brought together so that one may overlie the other. In modern newspaper printing it is found desirable to make a paper of eight or more pages, and as the sheets of four pages each pass successively from the printing rollers the problem is to cause one or more of the sheets following the first to overtake and be laid upon the first, so that when they reach the folding mechanism they will be folded together as one product. In the specification it is said:
'The invention consists, broadly, in causing the rear sheet or sheets, during some portion of its or their travel through the delivery mechanism, to move at a greater speed than the advance sheet, so that the sheets shall be caused to overlap each other, and eventually be imposed upon one another in proper register.'
This inventor was not the first who superposed one sheet upon another before they reached the folder, as prior inventors had accomplished the same result, one device being such an arrangement of tapes and rollers as to cause the first sheet to travel by a longer pathway, while the following sheet took a short pathway, and overtook the first at the point where the respective pathways came together. Another device caused the first sheet to be stopped and held upon a cylinder until one or more following sheets had been brought up and placed upon the first, when the cylinder rolled forward and delivered the sheets one upon the top of the other. The distinguishing feature of the Crowell device is that the sheets are conducted by pathways of equal length, and that after the first sheet has passed into its separate pathway, it is either held stationary, or its motion retarded, until the following sheet has got abreast of it in its own pathway, when the holding or retarding device releases the first sheet and they move on together to the point where their pathways unite, when the second sheet is brought on the top or superposed upon the first sheet, from whence they proceed to the folder, where they are folded together into a paper of eight pages or more, according to the number of sheets brought together. The elements of this device are two or more pathways of equal length, formed of tapes and rollers properly arranged for that purpose; a switch located at the entrance to these pathways, automatically operated, so as to direct the first sheet in the pathway where it is to be detained or retarded, and the following sheet, when but two are to be brought together into the pathway, where it will run without obstruction; and a retarding device which consists of two rollers with portions of their surfaces cut away, so arranged that as the first sheet passes between them it will be held still, or its motion slowed, until the following sheet in the other pathway arrives abreast of it, when the first sheet is released, and the two move at a common speed to a point where the pathways unite.
The patent contains seven claims, but infringement is charged only as to the sixth, which is as follows:
'The combination with a series of pathways of equal lengths, of means for guiding the successive sheets into different pathways, and means for retarding the speed of the advance sheet until the following sheet is abreast thereof, substantially as described.'
The defenses as to this patent are (1) that the patent is void for want of novelty; (2) that Crowell is limited by the prior art to the special devices shown in his patent, and the defendants do not use these devises; (3) that defendants do not infringe.
As to the first defense, I think the only conclusion from the proof in the record is that Crowell was the first to superpose the sheets as they follow each other from a web printing-press by causing them to travel in different pathways of equal lengths, and stop or retard the advance sheet until the following sheet or sheets is or are brought abreast of it, and they then move at a common rate of speed to a point where they come together. Other machines had carried sheets in pathways of unequal length, whereby the advance sheet, traveling by a longer route, reached the point where the two pathways met at the same time with the following sheet, which took a short road whereby one was laid upon the other; but none had accomplished the work of superimposition by sending the sheets which were to be laid together on pathways of equal lengths, before Crowell's invention. It is true that machines older than Crowell's device, and used for various purposes connected with the work of printing and delivering printed sheets, directed the sheets in different channels or pathways by means of switches, and the record also shows older devices for slowing or stopping the movement of sheets; but none of them show an organization of parts like Crowell's to do the work of superposing by the same means, and I think there can be no doubt that it required inventive genius to so arrange these parts as to perform the desired work, at the time Crowell entered the field. After he had produced his combination of co-acting parts, it may be very easy to find all these parts or elements separate in the older art, and, perhaps, doing in some older machines just what each separate element of Crowell's combination does in his machine,-- that is, switches directing the sheets alternately into different pathways, and brakes or brake-rollers holding back or retarding the movements of a sheet in its pathway; because Crowell did not invent switches nor pathways for sheets, formed by rollers and tapes, nor retarding devices, but he brought them together to co-operate in producing a result which had not been produced before by the same elements; and it is no answer to his claim as an inventor to say that the same result had been produced before by some of the elements of his combination acting with others, but in a substantially different way.
The two parts of the second point of defense may well be considered together. Defendants contend that their machines do not contain two pathways, and hence that they do not infringe. Their machine shows an organization of parts whereby the sheets, as they leave the common pathway which brings them from the printing rollers, are directed, by the operation of what is called a 'dividing finger,' alternately 'over and under' a small roller and plate or bar. This roller and bar keep the upper tapes lifted from the lower, and aid the tapes in carrying the sheets over the roller and bar, and as the roller does not quite touch the lower tapes, it does not interfere with or retard the sheets passing under it. A rock-shaft is provided with fingers, which are made to fit against the bar or plate to hold the rear end of the advance sheets until the following sheet has caught up with it, and at this point to release the detained sheet, and allow the two to move on together. This description is given by one of the defendants, Mr. Kahler, of the construction and mode of operation of defendants' machine. What he calls the 'dividing fingers,' which are located at the entrance to his pathway, are nothing more nor less than a switch substantially identical in its structure and operation with Crowell's switch, '16'. Its function is to 'direct and advancing sheets over and under the roller and plate or bar. ' This roller divides Mr. Kahler's pathway into two pathways; the sheets which go over the roller and bar take one pathway, and those which go under the roller and bar take the other pathway. It is true the pathways are closer together than those shown in Crowell's arrangement, and are formed with a less number of tapes and rollers, but they are separate ways, nevertheless, and are intended to and do enable the following sheet to come along-side of or abreast of the advance sheet, which must be done by one sheet being deflected into a different pathway from that taken by the other.
The diameter of the roller and bar...
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