Loew Filter Co. v. German-American Filter Co. of New York

• Decision Date: 05 March 1901
• Docket Number: 905.
• Citation: 107 F. 949
• Parties: LOEW FILTER CO. et al. v. GERMAN-AMERICAN FILTER CO. OF NEW YORK.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

107 F. 949

LOEW FILTER CO. et al. v. GERMAN-AMERICAN FILTER CO. OF NEW YORK.

No. 905.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

March 5, 1901

This is a suit in equity upon a bill filed by the German-American Filter Company of New York, as assignee of Heinrich Stockheim, complaining of the infringement by the appellants the Loew Filter Company and Charles H. Loew, its secretary and treasurer, of patent No. 378,379, issued to Stockheim in February 21, 1888, for a process for filtering beer. The bill charged the defendants with manufacturing and selling the apparatus employed by brewers in filtering beer according to the process for which the Stockheim patent was granted, and thereby contributing to the infringement by the brewers. Upon the filing of the bill and supporting affidavits the appellee moved for a preliminary injunction restraining the appellants from manufacturing and selling the apparatus which was alleged to constitute the contributory infringement complained of. The defendants, upon the hearing of the motion, submitted affidavits for the purpose of showing a prior use by other parties of the Stockheim invention for more than two years preceding the date thereof. The judge presiding at the circuit granted the injunction (103 F. 303), and the defendants appealed.

Wm Raymond Baird and Francis C. McMillin, for appellants.

Wm. A. Jenner, for appellee.

Before LURTON and SEVERENS, Circuit Judges, and CLARK, District Judge.

SEVERENS Circuit Judge (after stating the facts).

It would seem clear enough that the judge who granted this injunction made no mistake in holding that the making and sellin these filters, adapted to and intended, as they were, for no other use than filtering beer or similar fluids, should be held as contributing to such use by brewers, and as standing on the same liability as the parties actually using them. A similar question has been before us on former occasions where like circumstances existed, and the rule just indicated was recognized and applied. Heaton-Peninsular Button-Fastener Co. v. Eureka Specialty Co., 25 C.C.A. 267, 77 F. 288, 35 L.R.A. 728; Edison Electric Light Co. v. Peninsular Light, Power & Heat Co. (C.C.) 95 F. 669, affirmed in 43 C.C.A. 479, 101 F. 831. And see, also, Thomson-Houston Electric Co. v. Kelsey Electric Ry. Speciality Co., 22 C.C.A. 1, 75 F. 1005.

The important question in the case, however, and the one upon which the case, in all probability, must ultimately turn arises upon the ground taken by the defense that the Stockheim invention was anticipated by a prior public use of a process intended for a like purpose by Charles A. King, of Boston, Mass., commencing in May, 1885, and continued, with some modifications, and perhaps some interruption, until the commencement of the present suit. The process of the Stockheim patent consists in forcing beer from the 'chip tank,' as it is called, under a pressure greater than atmospheric pressure, through a pipe to and through a filter composed of material sufficiently porous to allow the beer to filter through it, and yet of sufficiently close texture to arrest the visible substances floating in the beer and, to a considerable extent, the yeast germs thus far passing towards the storage cask. From thence the beer was forced by the same motive power and under like pressure through another pipe and into the storage cask. The filter was provided with a vent, which could be opened to allow the escape of foam and the escaping gases when they should accumulate in the filter. The purpose of the process was to clear the beer of objectionable substances, and at the same time carry the beer into the storage casks under a...