De Mayo Coaling Co. v. Michener Stowage Co.
| Decision Date | 01 May 1915 |
| Citation | 227 F. 895 |
| Parties | DE MAYO COALING CO. v. MICHENER STOWAGE CO. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
Isaac B. Owens, of New York City (Nathan Cohen, of New York City of counsel), for complainant.
Charles S. Champion, of New York City, for defendant.
The patent in question was granted to Louis A. De Mayo, on August 15, 1905, United States letters patent No. 797,364, and is for coaling vessels. The complainant relies upon claim 7 of the patent, which reads as follows:
'In an apparatus for coaling ships, the combination of a frame and elevating means thereon, means for driving the elevating means, the driving means being mounted on the frame, means mounted on the ship and connected with the upper part of the frame to suspend the same from the ship and guy devices at each side of the frame; said devices being in connection with the frame and with the ship.'
A prior patent was granted to Johannes Bennik, under United States letters patent No. 674,753, on May 21, 1901. The specification in the letters patent states that:
'This invention has relation to elevators, and more particularly to bucket and similar elevators ordinarily employed in handling coal, grain, and like substances, and more especially adapted for transferring such substances from the hold of a vessel to a storage building or to a vehicle.'
The first claim, which is reasonably typical of the Bennik patent, is for:
'A pendulous bucket elevator, comprising a head and leg, a bucket band pulley in said head, a like pulley at the lower end of the leg, a motor for the pulley in said head, and means for supplying motive power thereto from a source distant therefrom, said elevator head provided with means for suspending the same from a flexible support, for the purpose set forth.'
Another prior patent, United States 676,075, granted to Alexander MacDougall on June 11, 1901, is stated in the specification to relate to mechanism for unloading ore and coal from the holds of vessels to docks, cars, etc. Claim 1 of this patent sets forth:
'The combination of an elevator leg pivoted over a vessel, an endless bucket elevator within the leg, means for operating the elevator, means for supporting the leg in a vertical position, means for raising and lowering the leg, a conveyer, connecting the out-take of the leg to a fixed discharge, a flexible means for supporting the conveyer in a normally horizontal position, and means for swinging the intake of the leg over the cargo. * * * ' The invention covered by the patent in suit consists of the combination of (1) a frame; (2) elevating means thereon; (3) means mounted on the frame for driving the elevator; (4) means mounted on the ship for suspending the apparatus; (5) guy devices at each side of the frame in connection with the frame and with the ship.
Complainant's counsel urges that the prior patents do not include any such guy devices as appear in the patent in suit and that the elements in combination constitute a patentable invention. He further urges that the problem of coaling a ship from a barge, which the patent in suit successfully solved, is much more difficult than the problem of raising coal from the hold of a ship and conveying it to a dock, or of lowering it from a dock to the hold of a vessel. These things, he says, are all that Bennik and MacDougall attempted to accomplish by their inventions. It is doubtless true that it is easier to raise coal from the hold of a large vessel, because there is in such case little rocking by the waves and tides. In the MacDougall patent, however, the diagram shows a barge being unloaded upon a dock. The apparatus is erected upon the dock, and is therefore steady; but the movement of the barge would be as unsteady as the conditions of the waves and tides might warrant. There would be consequent danger of collision between the apparatus and the barge, so that the problem was much the same as in the cause under consideration.
The Bennik patent, perhaps, contained all the elements of the patent in suit except the guy devices. The British patent No 11,903, to Reginald Haddan, granted in 1902, seems to contain substantially the same elements as that of Bennik. Flexibility in respect to movement in a vertical direction is affected by the suspension of the...
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De Mayo Coaling Co. v. Michener Stowage Co.
...for coaling vessels, and holding that defendant has infringed said claim. The opinion of Judge Augustus N. Hand will be found in (D.C.) 227 F. 895. S. Champion and Hillary C. Messimer, both of New York City, for appellant. George B. Holbert, of New York City (Nathan Cohen, of New York City,......