Van Epps v. United Box Board & Paper Co.

• Decision Date: 23 January 1906
• Docket Number: 170.
• Citation: Van Epps v. United Box Board & Paper Co., 143 F. 869 (2nd Cir. 1906)
• Parties: VAN EPPS v. UNITED BOX BOARD & PAPER CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

143 F. 869

VAN EPPS v. UNITED BOX BOARD & PAPER CO.

No. 170.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

January 23, 1906

Francis T. Chambers, John C. Pennie, and Osgood & Davis, for appellant.

E. H Risley, for appellee.

Before WALLACE, LACOMBE, and TOWNSEND, Circuit Judges.

TOWNSEND Circuit Judge.

The art to which the patent relates is that of separating, by means of sieves known as screen-plates, the fibrous particles and impurities in paper pulp, and of breaking up matter masses of the fibre. The screen-plates are slotted, and in the machines herein discussed reciprocating plates, called bellows-plates, form the bottom of a chamber below the screen-plates.

The construction of the Victory screen is accurately explained in complainant's brief as follows:

'The machine has a supporting frame with a rectangular body-frame which has the series of parallel cross-bars forming the rectangular spaces. At the top of the spaces are secured the separate bellows-plates, the sides of which are connected to the cross-bar, while their ends are connected to the side pieces of the frame by flexible bellows-joints, of suitable material. In the lower part of the frame is mounted a longitudinal driving-shaft, * * * and upon this shaft, * * * are mounted a series of eccentrics, * * * connected to the middle underside of the bellows-plates by the frames. These eccentrics are arranged alternately, so that they are connected, the other alternate eccentrics will lower the alternate bellows-plates to which they are connected. * * * At the outer edges of the strips which run around the top of the frame, is secured a rubber packing, or other suitable material, while the strips extend along the center of the top of the cross-bars to which they are secured by nails or screws, and along both their sides are secured packing strips of rubber or other suitable material. There is a top to the machine. * * * The top or vat has cross-bars, which register with the cross-bars of the body-frame, and the screen-plates are secured on the top of the cross-bars, as shown, with their side edge meeting on the cross-bars. The top and body have opposite apertured lugs through which screw bolts pass, having nuts on their ends, and it will be seen by tightening these screw-bolts, the top will be locked tightly down, the top and its cross-bars pressing down firmly on the packing and around the ends and sides of the bellows-plates, thus separating each bellows-plate by air-tight joints extending entirely around it, and rendering each bellows and the screen-plate above it entirely independent of all the others. (The patentee says:) 'This is an important feature of my invention.' The top of each bellows-plate is covered and each bellows is formed with a central opening from which a short pipe leads down into a box, which is secured longitudinally beneath the center of the cross-bars. The lower end of these pipes terminate about the distance above the bottom of the box shown and they are always sealed by water and paper 'stuff' in the box, above which they never rise.

'In operation it will be seen that as the driving shaft revolves the bellows-plate, each having its separate eccentric, will be moved up and down alternately as before described, the bellows-joints permitting this movement, and, as the packing around each bellows separates it completely from the other when the top is fastened down by the screw-bolts, it will be seen that each bellows will operate independently of all the others and draw the paper stuff which flows upon the screen-plates above it down through the screen-plates.

'The paper pulp is thus drawn through the screen-plates upon the concave face of the independently-working bellows, and passes down through the central openings and pipes into the longitudinal box from which it may be discharged through pipes or in any other suitable manner: 'I do not wish to confine myself to the discharge pipes here shown, as I may employ any other well-known means for effecting the same purpose."

And the contention of complainant is as follows:

'Victory * * * took some of the independent mechanical elements, old in the prior art when separately considered, and made a new and useful combination, which met the pressing needs of the wood pulp industry and solved existing troubles in the screening of wood pulp. Victory's type of screen has driven out of use all prior types of screens by doing more and better work than was ever before accomplished in the manufacture of wood pulp into paper. The spirit-- the very core of Victory's invention consists in the division of the space under a given screening area into separate, isolated, expanding, and contracting chambers, in which, at all times, there is present a sufficient quantity of air to permit of the expansion and contraction of the isolated chambers, so that by the expansion of the separate chambers a powerful suction is exerted on the stock covering the screen-plates, and when the chambers are contracted the air and stock in the chamber is forced upwardly through the slots in the plates with the force of an explosion, thereby removing all slivers and obstructions drawn into the slots by the down suction. The combination of mechanical elements expressed in claims one and two of the patent revolutionized the wood pulp paper screening industry more than any other single factor and made cheap paper possible.'

The so-called Gotham screen, one of the alleged infringements, is the nearest to the patented construction. It is admitted that these screens 'are like the Victory screens in having the space beneath the screen-plates divided up into a number of separate and independent compartments, separated from each other by air-tight partitions, and each provided with a vibrating diaphragm forming a part of its bottom. ' But there is only one compartment below each pair of screens, which compartment is only partially divided into two sections by a cross-bar, and, therefore, not 'rendering each bellows and the screen-plate above it entirely independent from all the others, * * * an important feature of my invention. ' The so-called 'bellows-plates' are not dish-shaped. Rubber strips are fastened to the top of the bellows-plates, as in the prior art, but there are no bellows-joints secured to the sides and ends of the bellows-plates. Gotham screens have a different, and apparently more practical and effective, driving mechanism, and a different, and claimed to be an improved, arrangement of a flow box, which dispenses with the forked connecting frame of the patent.

The claims in suit are as follows:

'(1) In a pulp-screening machine, the combination of the series of separate screens, 18, the series of independent bellows-plates, 5, having the flexible bellows-joints, 6, at their sides and ends, the drive-shaft, 7, having the eccentrics, 8, 9, alternately arranged upon it, and the connecting-frame, 10, substantially as set forth.

'(2) The combination, in a pulp-screening machine, of the body-frame, 2, having the parallel cross-bars, 3, the series of independent reciprocating bellows-plates, 5, having the flexible bellows-joints, 6, at their sides and ends, the flexible packing-strips, 13 and 14, extending around the ends and sides of each bellows, and the top, 15, having the series of parallel cross-bars, 17, and the screen-plates, 18, substantially as set forth.'

The other machines complained of are those known in the trade as the 'Success,' 'Packer,' 'New Success,' 'New Packer,' 'Monarch,' and 'Wells' screens. The Packer, Success, Monarch, and Wells screens do not differ substantially from the Gotham construction. The New Packer and New Success machines do not infringe the second claim because, inter alia, 'the screen chambers lying beneath the plates and above the vibrating diaphragms are not separated from each other by tight partitions;' they use a continuous sheet of rubber as a vibrating diaphragm, thus dispensing with the 'bellows-plates, 5' and 'the flexible bellows-joints, 6, at their sides and ends;' they do not have 'the flexible packing-strips, 13, and 14, extending around the ends and sides of each bellows,' as claimed, and, therefore, not 'thus separating each bellows-plates by an air-tight joint extending entirely around it, and rendering each bellows and the screen-plate above it entirely independent from all the others.'

The contention of complainant that pulp stock lodging between screen chambers so constructed as to be in free communication with each other throughout the whole vat, is the equivalent of these specifically limited 'flexible packing-strips, 13 and 14,' described as 'the packing completely around each bellows (which) separates it completely from the others,' because the patentee stated that said packing-strips might be of 'rubber or other suitable material,' is without merit, and does not require discussion. If, in the operation of a machine constructed without such strips, the pulp stock performs the function of sealing and separation, then there is no useful function assignable to or resultant from the provision of such strips.

Much of the evidence in this case is devoted to a discussion as to whether the Victory patent is predicated upon an erroneous theory of pneumatic operation by means of air constantly present beneath the screen-plates alternately pumped up and down through the slots in the screen-plates and causing a powerful downward suction of pulp into the chamber. The conflict of evidence on this point, based upon conflicting theories and practical experiments, leaves the question in doubt. We have not found it necessary, however, to determine this question or the subsidiary question as to whether defendant's screens are pneumatic or hydraulic...