McCormick Harvesting Mach. Co. v. C. Aultman & Co.

• Decision Date: 02 July 1895
• Docket Number: 171,172.
• Citation: 69 F. 371
• Parties: McCORMICK HARVESTING MACH. CO. v. C. AULTMAN & CO. et al. SAME v. AULTMAN, MILLER & CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

69 F. 371

McCORMICK HARVESTING MACH. CO. v. C. AULTMAN & CO. et al.

SAME v. AULTMAN, MILLER & CO. et al.

Nos. 171, 172.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

July 2, 1895

Robert H. Parkinson, for appellant.

Thomas A. Banning (Edmund Wetmore, U. L. Marvin, and Ephraim Banning, of counsel), for appellees.

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

TAFT Circuit Judge.

These are appeals from decrees dismissing two bills brought to restrain the future infringement of two patents, and to recover damages for past infringements. See 58 F. 773. The complainant, the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, is the owner of patent No. 195,506, for an automatic grain twine binder, issued to Marquis L. Gorham, February 9, 1875, and of patent No. 110,106, for an improvement in twine binders reissued May 9, 1892, to W. R. Baker. The principal defendant in one action was C. Aultman & Co., and in the other was Aultman, Miller & Co. As there was a close business relation between these two defendant corporations, the actions were by agreement of counsel treated as one suit, and heard as one cause.

The court below dismissed the bill as to the Gorham patent-- First, because the examiner of the patent office had refused to allow the claims of the old patent, here alleged to be infringed, on an application for a reissue of the patent made by Gorham's executrix in 1881, whereupon the application was withdrawn, and the old patent was returned to the patentee; and, second, because, in view of the prior art, the language of the claims involved must have a construction so limited as not to embrace the defendants' machines. The bill, so far as it sought relief from infringements of the Baker patent, was dismissed on the ground that the patent was invalid for want of novelty and invention. 58 F. 773.

In the discussion of the Gorham patent and its infringement, for a reason which will become obvious, we shall first consider the second ground upon which the conclusion of the circuit court rested, namely, that, even if the application for a reissue be disregarded as an estoppel, the machines of the defendants do not infringe the claims of the Gorham patent. The object of the Gorham invention was stated in his specification as follows:

'The object of this invention is to produce a machine for binding grain that will automatically receive the cut grain from the harvester, determine the size of the gavels or bundles, perfectly and securely tie the bundles, and, when so tied, discharge them from the machine, without any interference or agency other than the machinery that operates it.'

In 1874, when Gorham filed his application, there had been upward of 200 devices patented which had the object thus stated, but not one had successfully accomplished it in a practical way in the harvest field. There were two or more machines, patents for which had been taken out at an earlier date, which bound bundles of varying sizes automatically with wire, but they were wholly useless for twine, because of the great tension upon the binding cord necessarily involved in the principle of their operation. The disadvantages connected with the use of the wire as the binding material hardly need to be stated, because so obvious, and were shown with emphasis by the fact that, until automatic twine binders were invented, nearly all binding was done by hand, and when automatic twine binding became practicable, the few wire binders went entirely out of use. Grain, as it is cut by the knives of the harvester, usually falls on a platform moving at right angles to the direction of the horses and master wheel, and, after it crosses the space behind the knives, is automatically elevated over the master wheel by endless apron or otherwise, and is thence discharged downward onto a binding table. Until a practicable automatic twine binder was made, the binding was done by hand. In many cases the binders rode on the harvester, taking the gavel from the binding table and binding it there. In other cases, what was called a 'hand binder' was used. In using this, a operative adjusted the gavel for the machine, then actuated it by his hand, and this bound the bundle. The great aim of all inventors was to produce a machine which should automatically form the gavels, bind them with twine, and should discharge them, thus bound, by the same power which pulled the harvester, cut the grain, elevated it, and cast it on the binding table, to wit the horses. The difficulties to be overcome in reaching this result were principally in the condition of the grain as it was delivered up the elevator of the harvester onto the table. It was rarely, if ever, presented to the binder with the stalks regularly arranged in parallel lines. The heads, waists, and butts seldom reached the gavel-forming and binding mechanism at the same time. The stalks were so intermingled often as to form a tangled web. The diameter of a gavel cut off from the mass by a separator cleaving down through it the entire length of the stalks at right angles to its line of movement would vary greatly at the heads, butts, and waists, and therefore any automatic devices which, in forming and sizing the bundles, acted on the butts, waists, and heads at the same time, failed to produce bundles of the same size at the waist, where the binding was to be done, and where uniformity in size was essential to secure a proper operation of the binding mechanism if twine was used.

Having said so much about the problem which Gorham sought to solve, we come to his machine, a vertical sectional view of which is given in Fig. 5 of the drawings of his patent.

(Image Omitted) The Gorham binder is supported on the longitudinal sills of the harvester, which are extended for the purpose, so that the grain receptacle of the binder is brought into position to receive the grain as discharged from the harvester elevator. It is supported on ways with an adjusting lever, by which it can be slid backward and forward, by the hand of the driver, for the purpose of bringing the packing and tying mechanism into such a position with respect to the elevator of the harvester that the grain shall be received by this mechanism at the proper distance from the butts and heads of the grain, whether the grain be long or short. The grain is first delivered from the elevator of the harvester into a trough-shaped receptacle (F in the drawing) lying beneath and forming the front of the binder. In the bottom of this receptacle are two curved ribs, onto which the grain drops. Between the ribs lie two segments of a circle, designed in the drawing as C4, each of which is mounted on arms pivoted at their lower end to the frame of the binder. In front of the machine, and beneath the receptacle above described, is an iron shaft extending the entire width of the machine, with two cranks on the shaft set 180 degrees apart. Each of these cranks is connected by a pitman with the arm of one of the segments. When the shaft is revolved, as it is by a gear connection with the master wheel of the harvester, the two segments are forced to reciprocate in opposite directions, one advancing while the other is retreating. Each segment is provided with teeth, marked C6 on the drawing, which are pivoted upon it near their centers in such manner that the point or acting part of the teeth will catch against the grain which is dropped upon the curved ribs when the teeth are moving from the front towards the rear of the binder, and will drop down and not disturb the grain when they are moving from the rear to the front of the binder. The result of the movement of the shaft is that the teeth on one of the segments are going forward while those on the other are retreating, and their operation is to seize wisps of grain and force them towards the rear of the machine. And this effect will continue so long as the shaft revolves and any grain is lying upon the curved ribs. At the back of the receptacle above described into which the grain flows from the elevator of the harvester, and immediately over the path of the teeth-bearing segments, are two flat strips of iron, described in the specifications and drawings as the guides, D, secured at each end to upper cross bars of the binder frame. These guides, D, extend in a curved line, parallel and concentric with the line of the ribs and segments beneath, to what is called the binding or bundle receptacle G, of the machine. The wisps of grain seized by the teeth pivoted on the segments are carried into the throat or passageway formed by these guides, D, and the ribs and segments beneath, and are pressed through the throat into the bundle receptacle. This receptacle is nearly circular in form, being formed on one side of a curved end of a piece, C9, extending from between the ribs towards the receptacle, G, and, on the side opposite, of a flexible strap, g, with a stiff metal curved piece, G, immediately behind it. The strap at its upper end is attached to a cord, g, which, by a system of pulleys, passes up over the machine, and is secured to the upper end of an arm called the 'trip lever.' The trip lever is held in position by a coiled spring, so that the flexible strap takes an upright or nearly an upright position against the incoming grain, and is held there by the yielding pressure of the spring until the force of the grain against the strap as it is pressed rearward by the segment teeth overcomes the tension of the spring and trips the lever. Thereby a clutch is operated, and the binding mechanism proper is thrown into gear with the master wheel of the harvester. The binding mechanism consists, first, of the needle or cord-bearing arm working on a rock shaft beneath and in front of the binding receptacle. The needle is a...