Warren Webster & Co. v. C.A. Dunham Co.
| Decision Date | 19 September 1910 |
| Docket Number | 3,315. |
| Citation | 181 F. 836 |
| Parties | WARREN WEBSTER & CO. v. C. A. DUNHAM CO. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Syllabus by the Court.
The application of an old machine or combination to a new use is not in itself invention, or the subject of a patent.
If the relations between the two uses be remote, and if the use of the old device produce a new and beneficial result, the application to the new use may involve the exercise of the inventive faculty and be patentable.
But it is only when the new use is so recondite or so remote from that to which the old device has been applied, or for which it was evidently conceived, that its application to the new use would not readily occur to the trained mind of the ordinary mechanic skilled in the art, seeking to devise means to accomplish the desired function, that its conception rises to the dignity of invention.
Patentability of combinations of old elements as dependent on results attained, see note to National Tube Co. v. Aiken, 91 C.C.A. 123.)
The combination of thermostatic valves with the return pipes or the connections between the return pipes and the radiators of suction or vacuum systems of steam heating, such as are disclosed in letters patent No. 256,089, to Williames, issued April 4, 1882, did not rise to the dignity of an invention in view of the combination of such valves with the return pipes of pressure steam-heating systems shown in letters patent No. 113,434, to John J. Jordan, issued April 4, 1871. And letters patent No. 454,964, to W. E. Hall, issued June 30, 1891, was for a double use, and the patent for it is void.
Ernest Howard Hunter, for appellant.
Robert W. Hardie (Edwin N. Farber, William L. Read, and Charles A Munn, on the brief), for appellee.
Before SANBORN and ADAMS, Circuit Judges, and REED, District Judge.
This case involves the validity of letters patent No. 454,964 issued June 30, 1891, for an improvement in a steam-heating apparatus, the single claim of which reads in this way:
'In a steam-heating system, the combination with a steam pipe leading from the boiler, a radiating system connecting with the steam pipe, and a return pipe connecting with the lower part of a radiating system, of a thermostatic steam trap situated in the connection between the radiating system and the return pipe, all substantially as and for the purpose specified.'
Prior to 1882 the steam in a steam-heating system was forced by the engine or by a loaded exhaust pipe through the supply pipe, the radiators or heating coils, and the return pipe into the open air or into some suitable receptacle. In such a system a pressure in excess of that of the atmosphere was obviously indispensable to its operation. Where there were many radiators or heating coils connected with the supply pipe, the pressure necessary to drive the steam from many of them at the same time caused a choking and back pressure in the return pipe, which retarded the circulation of the steam and made the heating of the various radiators difficult and expensive. In order to remove this objection Napoleon W. Williames invented a combination with an unobstructed exhaust pipe and the other elements of this system of a pump or other like means for producing a partial vacuum in the return pipe and the radiators or heating coils connected therewith, by means of which the water of condensation, the steam, and air were drawn or sucked out of the return pipe, and letters patent No. 256,089 were issued to him for this invention on April 4, 1882. For the sake of brevity the apparatus system and return pipe through which the steam is forced will be called the pressure and that in which it is drawn by the partial vacuum the suction apparatus system and return pipe. The essential distinction between the systems is that the exhaust pipe is unobstructed, and the pump or other device to form the partial vacuum sucks the steam through the pipes in the latter, while the steam is forced through them in the former. The improvement made by Hall consisted of the combination of a thermostatic steam trap or valve placed in the return pipe, or in the connection between the radiators and the return pipe, with the other elements of a suction system. Without this valve the suction system was but partially successful, because the steam was short-circuited; that is, an excess of steam was drawn through the short lines of pipe and an insufficient amount from the long lines, and because it was difficult to regulate or modulate the heat in the respective radiators, and frequent readjustments of their valves were necessary. The use of the thermostatic steam trap or valve remedied these defects. This trap placed in the connection between each radiator and the return pipe automatically opened and discharged the condensed water and air when it was cool, and when the steam was drawn through it, and it was again heated, it closed, and prevented the unnecessary use and escape of the steam, the heat of each radiator was readily and automatically modulated, and the suction system with this improvement became exceptionally successful commercially, and displaced the pressure system very generally in hotels and other buildings, where many radiators were heated from a single supply pipe.
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