Metallic Extraction Co. v. Brown

• Decision Date: 08 October 1900
• Docket Number: 1,346.
• Parties: METALLIC EXTRACTION CO. v. BROWN.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

104 F. 345

METALLIC EXTRACTION CO. v. BROWN.

No. 1,346.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

October 8, 1900

John H Miller, for appellant.

Philip C. Dyrenforth, for appellee.

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

This is an appeal by the Metallic Extraction Company, the defendant below, from an order enjoining the infringement of United States letters patent No. 471,264, granted to Horace F Brown, the appellee, on March 22, 1892, under an application that was filed August 14, 1891. The patent in question was issued to Brown for alleged 'new and useful improvements in ore-roasting furnaces. ' The nature of the patented device which was adjudged to have been infringed will be readily comprehended by the drawing on the adjoining page Fig. 1, which is copied from the patent, issued to Brown, and is a cross section of a double-deck ore-roasting furnace, made in accordance with directions contained in the patent. The larger spaces, marked 'A' and 'B,' in the drawing, represent the two chambers of the furnace, one above the other, where ore is placed for the purpose of roasting it. The narrower spaces, on both sides of the roasting chambers, marked 'a, a,' in the drawing, represent corridors, or, as they are termed in the patent, 'supplemental chambers.' They are of equal length with the central or roasting chambers, and are parallel therewith, but separated therefrom by a slotted wall or partition, indicated in the drawing by the letters G, G. In these corridors a track is laid for their full length, on which, when the furnace is in operation, wheeled carriages propelled by an endless chain are run. From each carriage an arm projects laterally through the slot in the partition to the center of the roasting chamber, and from these arms depend stirrers, or 'rabbles,' as they are usually termed, which reach nearly to the floor of the roasting chambers. As these carriages move along the track in the corridors the rabbles also move in the same direction, thereby stirring up the ore in the roasting chamber, and effectually exposing it to the action of the heat. In a double-deck furnace, such as the figure represents, the carriages are made to move by mechanism, which it is unnecessary to describe, through the upper corridors in one direction, and thence through the lower corridors in the opposite direction. The carriages practically form links in the endless chain by which they are actuated. By the action of the rabbles as last described, the ore in the upper roasting chamber is also gradually moved to one end thereof, where it falls through a hole in the hearth into the lower roasting chamber, and is thence moved along the floor or hearth of the lower chamber to the opposite end thereof, where it falls through another hole to the cooling floor.

FIGURE 1.

(Image Omitted) The infringing device, the use of which by the appellant was enjoined by the lower court, is made in accordance with the specifications and drawings of United States letters patent No. 532,013, issued to Alfred Ropp on January 1, 1895, under an application which was filed on February 19, 1894. The construction of the infringing device will be readily comprehended by reference to the drawing on the adjoining page, Fig. 2, which is copied from the Ropp patent. In the drawing last referred to, A represents the roasting chamber of a single-deck furnace, and B, B, the hearth. Beneath the furnace is an open chamber, E, within which a four-wheeled truck travels on an iron truck. From this truck an arm, G, extends upwardly through a slot in the hearth, and attached to its upper end is a supporting bar, H, from which rabbles or stirrers depend very nearly to the floor of the hearth. When the furnace is in operation, the truck moves on its track through the chamber underneath the hearth, and carries with it the bar and depending rabbles, by which the ore in the roasting chamber is stirred, and effectually exposed to the heat. When the truck reaches the end of the roasting chamber, it is made to return over a circular track exterior to the furnace to the opposite end, and re-enter the chamber or passageway underneath the roasting chamber. In the Ropp furnace, as in the Brown furnace, the chamber in which the rabble-bearing truck moves extends the full length of the roasting chamber, and is parallel thereto.

(Image Omitted)

(Image Omitted)

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The plaintiff below contended, and the lower court so decided, that an ore-roasting furnace constructed in accordance with the specifications and drawings of the Ropp patent infringes claims 1 and 4 of the earlier patent granted to Brown. These claims in the Brown patent are as follows:

'(1) In an ore-roasting furnace having means for stirring and advancing the ore, a supplemental chamber by a wall or partition, and carriers in said supplemental chambers connected with the stirrers, but removed from the direct action of the heat, fumes, and dust, substantially as herein described. * * *

'(4) In an ore-roasting furnace, a wheeled carrier adapted to travel within the same, having a laterally projecting arm, to which the stirrers or blades are attached, and means for operating the carriers, substantially as herein described.'

Before CALDWELL, SANBORN, and THAYER, Circuit Judges.

THAYER Circuit Judge, after stating the case as above, .

The decision of the case in hand hinges on the construction which shall be given to claims 1 and 4 of the Brown patent, quoted above, and principally on the construction which shall be given to claim 1. The contentions of the respective parties, stated briefly, are as follows: The appellant insists that the invention of Brown covered by his first claim must be confined to 'a supplemental chamber at the side (and not underneath or above) the main roasting chamber,' because the patentee has expressly limited himself to such a location of the supplemental chamber by the language of his claim, and because the margin of invention is so small, in view of the state of the art when the patent was issued, that it will not admit of a broader interpretation of the claim. On the other hand, the appellee insists that the invention covered by the first claim is so far primary that the claim should be construed liberally so as to cover the actual invention disclosed by the specification, and that it should be held to comprehend a supplemental chamber placed underneath the roasting chamber, which is designed solely to protect the chain and trucks by which the rabbles are operated, as well as a chamber placed at the side thereof, and designed for the same purpose. Furnaces for the roasting and desulphurizing of mineral bearing ores were in use, as a matter of course, long prior to the date of Brown's patent, and it seems that single deck, double-deck, and possibly multiple-deck furnaces had been constructed and had been in sue for some years. In whatever form they were constructed, whether with a single deck or a double deck, it appears that it had been found necessary to stir or agitate the ores in the roasting chambers so that they would be evenly and effectually exposed to the heat, and that various instrumentalities had been employed for that purpose. The design or plan of a furnace which Brown annexes to his specification is that of a double-deck furnace, and he says generally of his invention that it 'relates to that class of horizontal furnaces having two separate longitudinal compartments forming hearths, one above the other, with connecting passages between them, and employing carriages drawn by chains or cables for gradually conveying the ore from the feeding to the discharge opening. ' Further on in his specification, he points out the difficulties that had been encountered in the operation of furnaces, which his invention was intended to obviate, and in that behalf says:

'A serious objection to many of the furnaces of the type herein shown has been that the chains and their attachments were drawn through the center of the furnaces, and were thereby exposed to the destroying action of the heat, dust, and fumes from the ore, and consequently these parts were soon destroyed. A second objection arose from the fact that the plows or stirrers traveled against the floor of the compartment, which, being usually made of brick, would not only soon by cut in channels and worn out, but the plows or stirrers themselves would also quickly be worn away. The essential part of my invention lies in constructing the furnaces so that these objectionable features are avoided, and the moving or carrying parts

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