Twentieth Century Machinery Co. v. Loew Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 May 1917
• Docket Number: 2854.
• Citation: Twentieth Century Machinery Co. v. Loew Mfg. Co., 243 F. 373 (6th Cir. 1917)
• Parties: TWENTIETH CENTURY MACHINERY CO. v. LOEW MFG. CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

243 F. 373

TWENTIETH CENTURY MACHINERY CO. v. LOEW MFG. CO.

No. 2854.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

May 8, 1917

S. E Hibben, of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

S. J Cox, of New York City, for appellee.

Before WARRINGTON and KNAPPEN, Circuit Judges, and HOLLISTER District judge.

WARRINGTON Circuit Judge.

This was a suit for infringement of a patent.The subject of the patent, No. 736,037, was devised by Simon Volz and, in virtue of direct and mesne assignments, the patent was granted to the appellantAugust 11, 1903.The device is entitled in the letters patent a 'bottle-soaking machine.'The pleadings in terms embrace the issues of validity and infringement as to all the claims; but the charge of infringement was limited at the trial to claims 2, 4, 7, 15 and 21.The decree adjudged these claims void 'for want of patentable novelty and invention,' and dismissed the bill of complaint.The plaintiff below, the Twentieth Century Company, appeals.

At the date of the patent in suit patented bottle-soaking machines were in general use, chiefly in beer-bottling plants, though also in plants used for bottling other liquids, such as mineral waters, ginger ale, and the like.These machines, including the one in suit, were designed through mechanical means to cleanse both the inside and outside of previously used bottles by conveying them into and through tanks containing, for instance, a caustic soda solution, and thence to a rinsing-tank into which the bottles were in most cases automatically discharged, thus fitting them for reuse.The machines alluded to differ of course in mechanism, but they were all designed to accomplish the same result.References to some of these prior patents are given in the margin.^[1] An obvious difference between the machine in suit and the machines thus far referred to consists in the manner in which the cleansing tanks are disposed; the tank of the former being placed and used in a vertical, while the tanks of the latter are maintained in a horizontal, position; and among the advantages claimed in respect of the device in suit over the old devices are (1) reduction in floor-space; (2) availability of the machine for elevator purposes, since the bottles may be placed in the machine at the botton floor and carried through the cleansing solution in the vertical tank to an upper floor and there automatically discharged into the rinsing-tank in a condition for reuse.The difference thus pointed out is regarded by plaintiff as one of the important features of the patent in suit; it is fully stated in the specification

'Heretofore the tanks of bottle-soaking machines have been arranged in a horizontal position upon the floor, and the large size required for their purposes has consumed considerable floor-space, the head room or space above the tank not being of course utilized.Again, the bottles arrive in the works or establishment at the lower floor, and the same are required for bottling on an upper floor, more generally the next or second floor, the bottle-cleansing occurring on either the lower floor or the next floor.However, in either case several handlings of the bottles are required, entailing considerable labor and expense.My machine is designed to obviate the above-stated objections, and to this end the tank is arranged vertically and extends from floor to floor, thereby consuming a minimum amount of floor-space and utilizing the head room, and, further, the construction is such that the bottles may be fed at the lower floor, then carried through the tank and cleansed, and eventually discharged or delivered automatically at the upper floor where required for use.The arrangement is also such that the bottles may, if desired, be fed to the machine at the upper floor.'

Other differences are pointed out and relied on by counsel to distinguish the Volz construction from the earlier machines referred to.These differences may be readily seen in Loew Supply & Mfg. Co. v.

Fred Miller Brewing Co., 138 F. 886, 71 C.C.A. 266(C.C.A. 7) , where it was held that the Cobb patent, supra, No. 690,563, for a bottle-washing machine, was not infringed by the Volz machine; a drawing of each of the machines is there shown.Admittedly the validity of the letters patent covering the Volz machine was not in issue in that case.The question was simply whether the Volz machine infringed the Cobb patent; but the crowded condition of the bottle-soaking machine art, certainly as to machines like Cobb's comprising the horizontal cleansing tank, was thus pointed out by Judge Baker (138 F. 889, 71 C.C.A. 269):

'There is room for such an adapter to have only a specific patent for his particular form of adaptation, and he is not privileged to exclude others from gleaning in the same general field.* * * The claims in suit, if construed generically, would be void; limited to the specific form of adaptation, we do not find them infringed.'

In the instant case advantages other than those already mentioned are claimed in respect of the Volz machine.For example, it is insisted as to his upright tank: The cleansing solution is kept clearer, more evenly heated, more active, and consequently more effective, in the vertical than in the horizontal tank; the chains carrying the bottle-racks are more easily balanced and less liable to drag, and hence more economically operated, in the vertical than in the horizontal type.As to Volz's bottle-racks: They are rectangular in form and composed of metal, two of their opposed sides comprising open frame-work, the other two sides being of sheet-metal containing circular openings which on one side are suitable in size to receive the bodies of the bottles and on the opposite side to receive the necks of the bottles; each rack is provided at its central transverse axis with fastening lugs for securing it in position between the two endless conveyer-chains, and is also disposed at an oblique angle to the plane of the chains; thus the racks are in succession presented in a downwardly inclined position to the operator at the feeding point; the bottles with the necks thrust through the racks are held by gravity in their upward movement on the outside of the tank until they pass sprocket-wheels 21, when the oblique position of the bottles is reversed, and they are held in place in their downward passage into the tank by contact between their bottoms and a guard suitably disposed; this movement is continued thence until sprocket-wheels 23 are passed, when the bottles are carried upwardly again (in the same position as in their first upward movement) to sprocket-wheels 16 and thence downwardly again with their bottoms in contact with a guard until they are automatically discharged into the rinsing-tank.See Fig. 1 of Volz patent drawings, 138 Fed.at 887, 71 C.C.A. 266.The relation of this general description of the Volz device to the claims of the patent is sufficiently illustrated by reference, for example, to claims 2 and 15, copied in the margin.^[2] By extending the necks of the bottles through the openings in the racks, as stated, it is contended that in the movement of the bottles through the cleansing operation abrasion of their crown-rims is substantially avoided and their condition for recapping better preserved; also that this method of preserving the crown-rims and of exposing the inside and outside of the bottles to the cleansing solution is superior to that involved in the closed form of bottle pockets used in the horizontal tanks

It is to be observed, however, that the idea of a vertical instead of a horizontal tank in which to cleanse bottles did not originate with Volz.The Dumke patent, No. 530,583, of December 11, 1894, was for a bottle-washing machine comprising a vertical tank; and, although the general appearance of the machine differs from that of the Volz machine, the essential operating features of the machines are very much alike.For instance, their sprocket-wheels and endless chains are similarly disposed; mechanical equivalency is found in the transversely adjusted bottle-boxes of the Dumke machine and the transversely secured bottle-racks of the Volz machine.True, the means of holding the bottles in place in the two devices differ, yet in both the bottles are held in a position oblique to the plane of the chains, and are conveyed similarly through the tank and thereafter automatically discharged.True, also, Dumke provided for feeding and discharging the bottles on the same floor feeding on one side and discharging on the opposite side of the machine; but it is apparent from the drawings that the bottles might have been discharged as readily at an upper floor as upon the same floor; indeed, the specification distinctly contemplated by way of illustration a distance of 15 feet between the centers of the upper and lower sprocket-wheels; and any necessity for use of the cleansed bottles on an upper floor would seem to have been plainly suggestive of such a change in place of delivery.We observe, further, that the Dumke machine is called a 'bottle-washer,' and the use of water alone in the tank is mentioned in the specification, but the machine is to be so gauged in its operation as to submerge the bottles for a long period of time and so as to insure 'a very thorough cleansing'; and, whatever may be said of any difference in cleansing qualities of the two machines, this can only be a matter of degree.The patent of Warning, No. 663,142, December 4, 1900, a 'machine for cleaning lye from the exterior of lye-containing cans,' shows a vertical tank having sprocket-wheels above its top and sprocket-wheels within and near the bottom of the tank, endless conveyer-chains passing around the wheels, openwork buckets connected to the chains for...