Soehner v. Favorite Stove & Range Co.

• Decision Date: 07 December 1897
• Docket Number: 486.
• Citation: 84 F. 182
• Parties: SOEHNER v. FAVORITE STOVE & RANGE CO. [1]
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

84 F. 182

SOEHNER v. FAVORITE STOVE & RANGE CO. ^[1]

No. 486.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

December 7, 1897

Nelson Davenport and Robert Ramsey, for appellant.

E. E Wood and Edward Boyd, for appellee.

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

SEVERENS District Judge.

This is a suit in equity upon a bill filed in the court below by the Favorite Stove & Range Company, setting up the ownership by complainant of two letters patent issued to Stanhope Boal one of which is reissue No. 11,462, of date January 8, 1895 for an improvement in stoves; the other being design patent No. 23,780, for the ornamentation of stoves, and bearing date November 6, 1894,-- both of which patents, it is alleged were assigned to the complainant. The bill charges that the defendant (the appellant here) has infringed both of said patents, in the sale of a stove called in this record the 'Western Stewart,' and it prays for an injunction, and an accounting in respect of the profits and damages. The defendant answered, denying the validity of the patents, upon the ground that the inventions lacked patentability; alleging that they had been in prior public use, and that they were anticipated by the prior art; and also denying infringement; but as no question arises in respect to the pleadings, and the and proofs, and the court, being of opinion that both the patents sued on were valid, and were infringed by the defendant, decreed in favor of the complainant. The defendant has brought this decree here for review by appeal.

Reissued patent No. 11,462 relates to the construction of cook stoves having three flues at the rear and bottom of such stoves; that is to say, two flues extending down the back of the oven, and at the outer end of the flue space there, and thence along under the oven next the outside of the stove, until these side flues open into a central return flue, which passes back under the oven, and up the rear thereof, between the side flues above mentioned. Such stoves had long been in use, and the patent is for an improvement upon the old construction. The patentee states the object of his invention thus:

'The object of my invention is to provide a cooking stove with a curved or swelling form of side plates, to which the oven doors are hinged, so as to increase the capacity of the flues, and also to increase the capacity of the oven, and at the same time adding a beautiful appearance to the stove, without increasing the cost.'

The essential feature of the construction devised by him consisted of an enlargement of the rear and bottom side flues, by swelling out that portion of the side plates of the stove which forms the side wall of the flues, in a circular form, turning inward towards the edges of the plates, and hanging the oven doors considerably back of the side openings of the oven, and upon the curve of the side plates towards the rear. It is claimed that thereby the area of the flues and of the oven is increased, and the appearance of the stove improved, without increased cost in the manufacture. The claims, as shown by the patent, are as follows: '(1) The combination with a cook stove having the usual draft flues and oven, and provided with two plates forming a flue at the rear of the oven, of a curved side plate, M, joined to the aforesaid flue plates, and forming an extension of the rear flue, substantially as specified. (2) The combination with a cook stove having an oven, and draft flues extending about said oven, and down at the rear thereof at each side, of curved plates, M, forming extensions of the said rear flues, substantially as specified. (3) The combination of a cook stove having an oven, and draft flues extending about said oven, and downward at the rear thereof, and at each side, of the curved plates, M, forming extensions, U, at the top and bottom of the oven, substantially as specified. (4) The combination with a cook stove having an oven, and draft flues extending about said oven, of the curved side plates, M, R, forming extensions at the sides and rear thereof, substantially as specified. ' (FIGURES OMITTED) R is a prolongation of the side plate, M, at the rear end of the stove, curving inward, and resting upon the rear plate. Inasmuch as a cook stove 'having the usual draft flues and oven,' which is made one element of the combination in the first claim, is the same stove as is made the corresponding element of the second claim, the claims are in effect for the same thing. The claims in the patent were not prepared with technical precision, and are somewhat obscure. Objection is made to them by counsel for the appellant, that they do not describe a practicable combination. In terms, they describe a complete cook stove as one element of the combination, and the side plate, M, could not be put together with the stove already completed. But, on looking at the specification, we see that the patentee did not mean, in his claims, to use as one part of his combination the whole cook stove, but the stove minus the outer plates, which were to be supplied by the other element of the combination. If, therefore, we apply the benignant rule of construction,-- as we required to do,-- that the claims should be construed by the specifications, and that if, looking at both, the court is able to understand the meaning of the patentee in the language of his claims, and, as so understood, the combination is a practicable one, it will give effect to them according to the apparent purpose. Ryan v. Goodwin, 3 Sumn. 514, Fed. Cas. No. 12,186; Blanchard v. Sprague, 3 Sumn. 534, Fed. Cas. No. 1,518; Turrill v. Railroad, 1 Wall. 491; Klein v. Russell, 19 Wall. 433, 466; Haworth v. Hardcastle, Webst. At. Cas. 480; Blandy v. Griffith, 3 Fish.Pat.Cas. 609, Fed. Cas. No. 1,529; Roller-mill Co. v. Coombs, 39 F. 25. These are a few of the great number of cases in which the foregoing rule has been approved and applied. Of course, if the language of a claim, in the light of the specifications, does not show that the patentee has described a practicable combination, there is an end of it, and the claim is nugatory. It is claimed for this patent that it provides more space for the flues and oven, without increasing the cost of the stove. Whether this is so with respect to the flues seems to be, upon the evidence, dubious. The reasons advanced for believing it are not very satisfactory. If the oven is enlarged, the curving in of the side plates at their edges must necessarily involve the use of more material in the side plates than if the plates were vertical throughout. But it is not necessary for us to decide how the fact is. With regard to the increase of the oven space by the proposed construction, it seems clear that, if the bottom plate is contracted to diminish the material, it must be at the expense of the flues. It is true that the bringing of the oven doors back upon the rear projection of the side plates might, from the size given to the doors, induce purchasers to believe that the oven is larger than it really is. But that would be a species of deception which could hardly be said to be an improvement in a useful art, which the patent laws are designed to encourage. In the complainant's stoves built under this patent, the oven door is shown to be swelled out in its central part, and in this way the oven space is widened. But the form of the oven door is not involved in the patent. The door constitutes no part of the combination. The transfer of a portion of the width of the oven plates to, and casting it as an inward projection of, the side plates, does not lessen the material employed, or result in any advantage that we can see, or that is suggested by the patentee. The substance of the patent and of his invention, as before stated, consists in the curving of the side plates.

We come now to the consideration of the prior art in the construction of the flues. It is shown by the evidence in the record that as early as 1877, and for several years...