Lanyon Zinc Co. v. Brown

• Decision Date: 10 November 1902
• Docket Number: 1,786.
• Citation: 119 F. 918
• Parties: LANYON ZINC CO. et al. v. BROWN et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

119 F. 918

LANYON ZINC CO. et al. v. BROWN et al.

No. 1,786.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

November 10, 1902

Albert H. Walker and John H. Atwood, for appellants.

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of kansas.

Before CALDWELL and THAYER, Circuit Judges, and HALLETT, District Judge.

HALLETT District Judge.

This case was before the court at the last term on appeal from an order made in the circuit court granting an injunction pendente lite. The history and character of the case and its dependence upon Metallic Extraction Co. v. Brown, 104 F. 345, 43 C.C.A. 568, is fully stated in the review of the case at that time. (C.C.A.) 115 F. 150. At that hearing appellants assigned error upon the ruling of this court in the Metallic Extraction Company Case sustaining claim 1 of the Brown patent, No. 471,264, and put before the court a patent issued to William C. Munroe, No. 227,818, in support of that assignment. The Munroe patent was considered at length, and found to be very different from the Brown invention. Afterwards the case was carried to final decree in the circuit court, which sustained claim 1 of the Brown patent, No. 471,264, and declared that respondents, in constructing a Ropp furnace under patent No. 532,013, had infringed upon the Brown patent. The decree was entered July 3, 1902, and this appeal was taken from it.

At this hearing, error is again assigned upon the ruling of the court upon claim 1 of the Brown patent in the Metallic Extraction Company Case. Another patent, not heretofore considered by the court, is now put before the court to show that the former ruling was not correct. This patent, No. 61,577, was issued to I. N. Stanley, January 29, 1867. Figures 1 and 2 shown upon the opposite page, exhibit the form and structure of this device. The Stanley furnace is round, and it is described with reference to Fig. 1 on the opposite page in claim 1 of the patent as follows:

'An oven B, revolving arms F, F, and upright shaft K, operated by means of gears G, G, and horizontal shaft H, or their equivalents, substantially as described.'

The inventor describes the manner of putting ore into the top of the furnace through the hopper L in the figure in words following:

'The ore pulverized is placed into a hopper near the center of the furnace, and is conveyed through a tube of fire clay or other material of a refractory nature, near the center of the oven B, and is from thence conveyed in a circular manner from the center to the circumference, where it passes through an opening, J, into a receiver for amalgamation or other treatment.'

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The plows of rabbles of the Brown patent, by which the ore is stirred, are in the Stanley patent called carriers, and the ore is delivered into the furnace through them. Claim 2 of the Stanley patent reads as follows:

'2. I claim the conveying the ores or other material, while being operated upon, from the central part of oven B to the circumference, and there discharging them, or from the circumference to the center as may be desired, by means of conveyers A, A, connected to arms F, F, as shown on Fig. 5, substantially as described.'

How the ores would be conveyed from the center to the circumference or in the opposite direction, is not explained in the patent, but it may be assumed that this result might be obtained through some inclination of the hearth. Provision was made for reversing the rotary movement of the rabble carrying arms so as to protract the period of roasting, and thus...