Stebler v. Riverside Heights Orange Growers' Ass'n

• Decision Date: 12 June 1913
• Docket Number: 2,232.
• Citation: 205 F. 735
• Parties: STEBLER v. RIVERSIDE HEIGHTS ORANGE GROWERS' ASS'N et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

205 F. 735

STEBLER v. RIVERSIDE HEIGHTS ORANGE GROWERS' ASS'N et al.

No. 2,232.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

June 12, 1913

Frederick S. Lyon, of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellant.

N. A Acker, of San Francisco, Cal., Wm. M. Hiatt, of Los Angeles Cal., and H. L. Carnahan, of Riverside, Cal., for appellees.

Before GILBERT, Circuit Judge, and WOLVERTON and DIETRICH, District judges.

DIETRICH District Judge.

The appellant, as the owner of reissue letters patent No. 12,297 granted to Robert Strain December 27, 1904 brought this suit to enjoin alleged infringement. The invention is a machine for grading or assorting fruit with reference to size, and is presently useful chiefly in the orange industry, where, in order to secure a uniform pack, it is necessary that all oranges in a box be practically of the same size. Assortment by hand is too slow and inaccurate, and hence the need of a mechanical device.

The claims alleged to have been infringed are 1 and 10, which are as follows:

Claim 1:

'In a fruit grader, in combination a plurality of independent transversely adjustable rotating rollers, a nonmovable grooved guide lying parallel with the plane which passes vertically and longitudinally through the center of said rollers, said rollers and guide forming a fruit runway, a rope in the groove in said guide, and means to move said rope.'

Claim 10:

'In a fruit-grading machine, a runway formed of two parallel members, one of said members consisting of a series of end to end rolls, brackets carrying the rolls, guides for the brackets, and means for adjusting the brackets upon the guides, substantially as set forth.'

The defenses are invalidity of the claims, through anticipation of the combination thereby called for, and noninfringement.

The issue can be more clearly and concisely explained by a reference to the state of the art when the patent was issued. There was at that time in practical use what was commonly known as the California grader, based upon a patent (No. 458,422) granted to J. T. Ish, August 25, 1891. The essential members of this device were (1) a long horizontal roller, with graduated sections or steps, turned down from a large diameter to a smaller one, resembling an inverted telescope; and (2) a flat endless belt, so adjusted that it was longitudinally parallel with the axis of, but a little lower than, and with a slight lateral inclination from the horizontal toward, the roller. The oranges were fed or delivered at a point near the large end of the roller, and by the moving belt were carried along, with one side resting upon the belt and the other upon the roller, until a point was reached where the space between the edge of the belt and the roller section was large enough to permit them to fall through into bins or receptacles provided for that purpose. It will be seen that thus the oranges of the smallest size were first eliminated, and then those a little larger, and so on; the largest being carried to the largest opening, which, of course, was opposite the smallest and last step. Inasmuch as the roller rotated upward and outward, the oranges could not be caught and squeezed, but were constantly turning different sides to the opening between the roller and the belt, through which there was a tendency to escape as soon as a point was reached where the aperture was larger than the smallest diameter of the orange. Means were employed to give the belt rigidity, and not uncommonly a round belt or 'rope' resting in a groove was used; but these were doubtless mechanical equivalents, and the variations in this respect are not thought to be of importance.

While efficient beyond any device theretofore invented and of great practical value, in actual use the Ish machine disclosed certain weaknesses or defects. It was wanting both in adaptability to fluctuating grade sizes and adjustability in relation to bin space for the assorted fruit. It is obvious that, if the sorting is dependent upon and controlled by the several steps of a single roller, the grade spaces must sustain fixed and unalterable relations to each other. While possibly the operator might increase or diminish the size of all the spaces alike by increasing or diminishing the distance between the belt and the roller, he could not alter the width at one step without in like manner altering it at all other steps. And necessarily the precise difference in size between the several grades could not be left to the option or discretion of the packer, but must be predetermined by the manufacturer of the machine, for if the step down in the roller is one-half inch or one-fourth of an inch, the difference between the sizes of two successive grades must likewise be one-half or one-quarter of an inch. One lot may run largely to one size, and another lot to a different size. It follows that if the roller in the Ish machine was graduated for nine sizes, and if of a given lot of oranges one half were of one such size and one of another, the corresponding bins would be congested, while other bins would receive little, if any, of the fruit. In the operation of packing it is necessary that the oranges be assorted, not only according to size, but also according to quality, and this latter process must be performed by hand. They must also be wrapped in paper and placed in boxes. Each size being handled separately, one of the problems is to provide adequate bin space to give access for the requisite number employed in these several operations. If the bins were of equal capacity, and the run happened to be confined to two or three sizes, the number of attendants having access to such bins might be too small to handle and pack the fruit and keep the machine from clogging, while those attending other bins would have little, if anything, to do. If under such conditions a part of the dominant grade could be carried forward and delivered into other bins, the difficulty might be obviated. Some relief was secured by elongating the runway, through the use of two or more graduated rollers, instead of one; but the expedient was not wholly satisfactory, even in solving the problem of bin space, and in no wise affected the objectionable fixity of grade relations.

In this state of the art Strain conceived the invention covered by the claims in suit. In effect it may be described as a modification of or addition to the Ish machine, by cutting the roller into as many pieces as there are steps, and separately mounting them, all in line longitudinally, each being independent and transversely adjustable. More accurately, several short rollers of uniform diameter are arranged in line, to take the place of the one long graduated roller of the Ish machine, and the required grading space in the case of each roller is secured by adjusting the roller toward or from the traveling belt. It is apparent that with such a construction the rollers may be so arranged as to form a true alignment, and the grading aperture thus be made of uniform width throughout the entire length of the runway, or they may be so adjusted that the opening has as many widths as there are rollers, or for half the distance it may be of one width and the other half another width, and so on. As a consequence, the operator may at will adopt such grade sizes as he sees fit, and, subject, to certain limitations, may deliver any size into any bin.

The invention, we think, was an important and distinct advance in the art, and is not anticipated by former patents. Those chiefly relied upon for this defense are the Ish patent already referred to, the patent to Bailey, granted April 9, 1901 (No. 671,646), and one to Hutchins, granted July 14, 1891 (No. 456,092). Enough has already been said of the Ish machine to make it...