Stirrat v. Excelsior Mfg. Co., 341.

• Decision Date: 07 May 1894
• Docket Number: 341.
• Citation: 61 F. 980
• Parties: STIRRAT et al. v. EXCELSIOR MANUF'G CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

61 F. 980

STIRRAT et al. v. EXCELSIOR MANUF'G CO.

No. 341.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

May 7, 1894

Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Missouri.

A. C Fowler, for appellants.

Paul Bakewell, for appellee.

Before CALDWELL and SANBORN, Circuit Judges.

SANBORN Circuit Judge, delivered the opinion of the court.

This was a suit for the infringement of letters patent No 357,874, for a water-heating device for stoves and ranges issued to the appellants Robert J. Stirrat and Robert G Stirrat, February 15, 1887. The defense was that there was no patentable novelty in complainants' device, and that the appellee, the Excelsior Manufacturing Company, a corporation, did not infringe. The circuit court dismissed the bill on the latter ground. 60 F. 607.

The device of the appellants consists of the combination of the hollow, long center plate of a stove or range, with a supply pipe, which leads from the lower part of a water tank, through the wall of a stove or range, thence in front of the fire back, and is then inserted in the under side of the long center plate, near the end furthest from the source of supply, and an eduction pipe which leads to the hot-water tank and is screwed into the long center plate at the end opposite to that at which the supply pipe is inserted. The device of the appellee consists of the combination, with the solid, long center plate of a stove, of a water box, slotted lugs and bolts or screws by which it may be fastened to the long center, and a supply pipe and an eduction pipe arranged and inserted in the water box in substantially the same way in which the appellants arrange and insert the like pipes in their hollow, long center plate. The device of the appellee is described in letters patent No. 358,123, to O'Keefe and Filley, dated February 22, 1887. In operation, the cold water is led through the supply pipe in front of the fire back, and thence, in appellants' device, through the hollow, long center, and, in the appellee's device, through the water box fastened on the under side of the long center, to the hot-water tank.

The claims and specifications of every patent must be read and construed in the light of a full knowledge of the state of the art when the patent was issued. A patent to the original inventor of a machine which first performs a useful function protects him against all machines that perform the same function by equivalent mechanical devices, but a patent to one who has simply made a slight improvement on a device that performed the same function before as after the improvement, is protected only against those who use the very improvement he describes and claims, or mere colorable evasions of it.

If Robert J. Stirrat, the inventor of the device of appellants, had been the first to discover and to reduce to practical operation a combination of pipes or water boxes or both, to be used in stoves or ranges for the purpose of heating water and tempering the heat of the long center plates or tops of stoves or ranges, and had broadly claimed for his invention the protection of the patent laws, the appellee's device would clearly have been an infringement upon his patent. On the other hand, it is not less certain that, if devices of this character had long been in use before his invention, if the machine used by the appellee, or devices so analogous to it that it required no invention to conform them to that of the appellee, had long been known and used for this purpose, and if this invention of Stirrat was nothing more than a slight improvement of well-known devices in features of construction specifically pointed out in the specifications and claims of his patent, then the appellee ought not to be charged as an infringer here. In other words, the question of infringement or noninfringement in this case must be determined by the limitations placed upon this patent by the state of the art when it was issued, and the specifications and claims of the inventor himself. McCormick v. Talcott, 20 How. 402, 405.

What, then, was the state of the art? As early as 1875 two horizontal pipes, placed against the fire back of a stove, the one above the other, and connected together in the form of an ox bow, so that the cold water should be led into the stove through the lower pipe, and back, when heated, through the upper pipe, to the receptacle for hot water, were in common use. In letters patent to Wood, No. 115,800, June 6, 1871, and to Weldon, No. 227,334, May 4, 1880, a water back for a stove or range with a partition therein extending nearly the length of the box to divide the cold water from the hot, and an arrangement for passing the pipe from each side through the wall of the stove or range, are shown. In letters patent No. 258,098, to William Miller, May 16, 1882, a fire box lined on each side with a water back having a hollow extension that supports the panel or long center of the stove or range containing the fire box is shown. In the specifications to that patent Mr. Miller says:

'I am aware it is not new to support the long centers or top plates of ranges or similar cooking apparatus by a coil of water pipes extending from the front to the rear of the furnace, communicating with the water back proper and boiler of the range or stove. Furthermore, I am aware it is not new to support these long centers by means of water chambers extending completely across from the front to the rear of ranges, etc., as such devices are seen in several patents.'

Letters patent No. 277,009, to Newton Cooper and Thomas E. Conwell, May 8, 1883, show the long center of a stove, with water passages in it, connected by pipes with a water reservoir. They also show water passages in other parts of the top of the stove, and describe an arrangement for connecting these with the interior of a hollow fire back, so that the water may pass through the latter and the passages in the top of the stove to and from the reservoir. In the specifications these patentees say:

'We are aware that water pipes have been placed contiguous to the under side of stove tops and to the rear sides of stove fire backs, but not entering the body of either, and we do not claim the same. In our invention the water comes directly into the body of both the top and fire back.'

Thus it appears that there was no novelty in suspending pipes in front of the fire backs of stoves or ranges for the purpose of heating water; that there was no novelty in making the fire backs of stoves hollow, and heating the water therein; none in providing the long centers or tops of stoves with water passages, through which the water might circulate to and from the reservoir; none in connecting the hollow fire back with the passages in the top of the stove, so that the water might circulate from the reservoir through the stove top and the fire back, and thence to the reservoir; none in placing water pipes contiguous to the under sides of long centers of stoves; and none in connecting such contiguous pipes with the hollow fire backs or water backs proper of stoves, so that the water would circulate through the water backs and the contiguous pipes. Vide Miller, No. 258,098, supra. The appellee seems to have simply turned over the old device described by Miller and placed the pipe on the fire back, and bolted the water back to the long center. Was this invention, and, if so, was it Stirrat's?

In his original application, filed October 23, 1883, Stirrat says 'My improvement consists in forming a water passage in the long center or centers connected with the water tank by suitable pipes,' and his only claim was 'the long center of a stove or range, formed with a water passage therein, communicating with induction and eduction pipes. ' This claim was immediately...