Karl Kiefer Mach Co. v. Heyman

• Citation: 218 F. 847
• Decision Date: 17 December 1914
• Docket Number: 9-276,10-84.
• Parties: KARL KIEFER MACH. CO. et al. v. UNIONWERKE, A.G. SAME v. HEYMAN.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

218 F. 847

KARL KIEFER MACH. CO. et al. v. UNIONWERKE, A.G.

SAME v. HEYMAN.

Nos. 9-276, 10-84.

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

December 17, 1914

The Kiefer reissue patent, No. 12,455 (original No. 797,122) claims 9 and 10, for a filter pulp packing machine for pressing filter cake for beer filters, held valid, but not infringed.

The Kiefer patent, No. 993,780, for a filter for straining beer and ale, claim 1, is valid, but in view of the prior art is entitled to only a narrow construction; as so construed, held not infringed.

The Kiefer patent, No. 1,015,326, claims 14 to 17, inclusive, and 19 to 22, inclusive, for a filter for straining beer, etc which were introduced by amendment pending the application without any supplementary affidavit, are void for lack of description; certain of the elements claimed therein being entirely absent in the proceedings up to that time, not only from the specification, but also from the drawings and claims. Claims 23 to 25, inclusive, for a filter cake as a new article of manufacture, also held invalid, for want of novelty.

The Kiefer patent, No. 1,023,254, for a filter for straining beer and ale, is void for lack of novelty in view of the prior art.

Henry D. Williams, of New York City, for complainants.

Wetmore & Jenner, of New York City, for defendants.

SANBORN District Judge.

Infringement suits on three patents for a filter for straining beer and ale, including also claims for the filter cake itself, and on one reissue patent on a press for packing the filter cake. There is also included in the Heyman case a cause of action for the repeal of a later patent issued to defendant Heyman as assignee of Benno Danziger. The patents involved are:

Reissue patent No. 12,455, to Karl Kiefer, dated February 20, 1906 (original applied for June 12, 1905, No. 797,122).

Patent No. 993,780, to Karl Kiefer, applied for April 16, 1906 issued May 30, 1911.

Patent No. 1,015,326, to Karl Kiefer, applied for February 12, 1906, issued January 23, 1912.

Patent No. 1,023,254 to Karl Kiefer, applied for April 23, 1907, issued April 16, 1912.

The Danziger patent, No. 1,029,915, sought to be repealed as an interfering one, was applied for July 12, 1911, and issued to Nathan H. Heyman June 18, 1912. It is alleged that this application was for the improvements in filters covered by the Kiefer application, resulting in patent 1,023,254, and that the patent was issued by inadvertence or mistake.

In addition to the defenses of lack of novelty and noninfringement, several relating to certain of complainants' patents are pleaded and relied on. These are specifically mentioned in this memorandum in connection with the discussion of the respective patents. Seventy-five prior art patents are pleaded in the answers, and many prior publications. Thirty-two of these patents are particularly relied on as anticipations in whole or part, as well as several exhibits of filters, filter frames, and filter cakes.

In the manufacture of beer it is necessary to filter out certain waste matter after fermentation, particularly what remains of the yeast, and to be efficient the process must be rapid. It is done by forcing the liquid through compressed wood pulp or cotton fiber of a density sufficient to retain the impurities, but allow the clear liquid to be forced or drawn off. This is called the racking-off process. In modern filters a barrel per minute can be thus purified. After use for a certain time the machine and filter plates must be thoroughly cleansed, and the pulp or fiber cakes broken up into 'filter mass' and washed for repeated use in other cakes, to be again pressed ad used in future filtering. The following further description is taken from Mr. Jenner's brief:

'In order to use pulp as a filtering material it is necessary to compress it, more or less, which closes up the interstices between the fibers and renders the mass capable of restraining the impurities which it is desired to remove from the liquid and permit the liquid to pass through. The completeness of this removal, and hence the efficiency of the filtration in this respect, depends upon the degree of compression; the greater the compression, the closer the fibers lay together, and the more difficult for impurities to pass through. At the same time, the denser the material, the slower the liquid passes through for a given pressure, and the greater the pressure the speedier the filtration. The compression, therefore, of the layer of pulp will depend upon those two conditions, the degree of clarification, and the speed of filtration which may be desired, and to meet these varying requirements the degree of compression is left to the judgment of the operator. The conditions mentioned will vary in different cases, but for such a liquid as beer an average must exist in actual practice, to meet which the degree of compression and degree of density may be standardized. In the trade and in some of the patents the pulp is called 'filter mass.' In some of the early patents the filter mass was compressed in the filter itself; in others the filter mass was compressed outside of the filter itself, in a press adapted to compress the filter mass into the form of layers or cakes, suitable to be put into the filter, or in frames which, when aggregated, constitute the filter. From the beginning marginal compression of the filter layer was effected in order to produce a gasket effect and prevent leakage of the unfiltered liquid around the edge of the filter layer, without going through the filtering medium itself. This was, of course, a necessary precaution.'

In modern practice the pulp is not used as a gasket, but the round filter cakes are placed in the filter somewhat like coins in a portable savings bank. On each side of the cakes (top and bottom) are the flat circular disks or filter plates, with means for allowing the liquid to escape through their edges and centers, or edges alone, under pressure. A silver dollar would be a small copy of the filter cake, if its edge were compressed to half the thickness of the center portion.

Mr. Kiefer has taken out a number of patents for filters and filter cake presses. He entered the field in 1897, and has had applications in the Patent Office much of the time since. He was accustomed to do his own soliciting, and acquired a considerable degree of skill in that line, in spite of the fact that he was educated in Germany, and has not fully mastered the English idiom. He was his own expert witness, and showed a thorough knowledge of the filtering art.

It may fairly be said, I think, that the filtering art was pretty well developed when Kiefer began applying for patents, especially by 1901, when one of his earlier inventions was applied for; the first patent in suit dating from 1905. Most of the things which Kiefer introduced in his combination claims were already known, so his work was mainly improvement, by a more exact or refined application of old principles. Adams & Westlake Co. v. Peter Gray & Sons (D.C.) 206 F. 303. Defendants put in evidence parts of a German filter found in Everard's brewery, New York City, known as the Enzinger machine, and drawings of all the filter parts. Apparatus of this kind was brought from Germany in 1893, and used down to 1905. A later and stronger form, called the 'Mammut,' was brought over in 1905. The press in which the pulp plate was made is shown in Enzinger's German patent, No. 69,405, of 1893, and his American patent, No. 605,706, of 1898.

In order to properly value what Mr. Kiefer has contributed to the beer-filtering art, a brief description of the Enzinger press and filter may be profitable. It is obvious that the Mammut type, so far as it is merely heavier and stronger and has the same mode of operation, is a mere development of the early kind. It is of the battery type, where the frames are brought together in a vertical position and screwed up, so that the filter, when fully put together, is horizontal in its position. This may be illustrated by likening the frames to wire screens for windows, with the wire in the center plane of the screen, and having the wooden frames very thin. Suppose a number of them are set up vertically and juxtaposed, and holes are bored through two opposite corners of the frames, so as to make two continuous channels through all of them. Obviously one channel may be used to introduce liquid to the inside of the frames, and the other to take it out, provided slots or holes be made from the inner sides of the channels into the frames. The frames being clamped up tight, and both ends of the battery or row of frames being made water-tight, the liquid forced from the channel into the inlet slots must go through the frames sidewise, and escape from the outlet slots on the opposite side. Now, if each alternate frame be covered on each side of the woven wire with a thin filter pulp cake it may be seen that the liquid may be so introduced that it must run through the filter cake before passing out through the outlet slots, and leave its impurities behind in the pulp. This may be taken as a rough description of the Enzinger filter, although in that there are four channels, two at alternate corners of the plates, so that the cloudy and clear liquid is put in and taken out through parallel channels at one corner only; the channels at the opposite corner being used for the escape of air and gas.

In order to prepare the alternate frames with a filter pad or cake on each side of the centrally located wire screen, it is necessary to have a press, consisting of a drum or container into which the frames will fit tightly, and means for exerting pressure. A thin mixture of water and pulp is poured into the drum (which is provided with a...