51 F. 223 | U.S. Circuit Court for the Northern District of Illnois | 1892
This is a bill in equity, charging defendant with the infringement of patent No. 4.01,871, granted April 28, 1889, to Edwin 0. Abbott, for a “check protector.” The patent in question shows a device for cutting or punching letters, figures, or signs into paper, and its main use is for so cutting or perforating interbank checks or drafts the figures denoting the amount for which the chock or draft is drawn, thereby giving an additional security against an alteration of the check. Infringement is charged of the fourth and fifth claims of the patent, which cover the feeding mechanism of the machine. These claims are:
“ (4) In a feeding device for a check protector, the combination of a stationary feed roll and rotatable shaft, fixed at one. end and movable at the opposite end, a feed roll mounted on the movable end of the shaft, and a lever engag*224 ing with the shaft for moving it to carry the feed rolls from contact, substantially as described. (5) In a feeding device for a check protector, the combination of a stationary feed roll, a rotatable shaft, mounted at one end in fixed bearings, a feed roll mounted upon the opposite end of the shaft, a lever carrying the latter end of the shaft, whereby to move it to carry its feed roll from the stationary feed roll, and a spring for normally holding the feed rolls in contact, substantially as described.”
It appears from the proofs that, in order to make a device of this kind serve the purpose for which it is intended, it is highly desirable to obtain a correct alignment and spacing of the signs and figures cut or perforated into the check or draft. It is also necessary that the line of signs or figures denoting the amount shall be parallel with the written or printed matter of the check, and hence the machine must have an endwise feed, and the parts must be so arranged as that the check to be operated on can be inserted sideways into the machine at about the point where the figures are to be cut; or, in other words, directly under the cutting or perforating mechanism. Both the complainant’s and the defendants’ machines have a platen, or metal plate, the width of which is about that of the length of an ordinary bank check, and the check to be operated on is laid upon this platen, and then pushed ^ideways, until it is brought properly under the cutting mechanism. The feed is obtained by two friction rollers, which are so near in contact as to firmly hold the check between them, so that, by rotating the lower of these rollers, the check is moved or fed lengthwise, and an intermittent motion is imparted to this lower roller by means of a lever and pawl acting upon the shaft which carries them. This lower roller is movable on its shaft beneath the platen, and a portion of the platen is cut away, so as to allow the upper surface of the roller to extend slightly above the upper surface bf the platen, when it is rotated to move the check. It is plain, therefore, that the end of this lower roller which reaches above the surface of the platen will interfere to some extent with the sideways movement of the check when the operator attempts to push it into place under the cutters, and to obviate this difficulty the end of the shaft which carries the lower roller is attached to a lever? which has a slight movement up and down, this movement being controlled by a spring so arranged as to hold the roller in operating position,—that is, in contact, or nearly so, with the upper roller,—but which admits of depressing the lower roller so that its entire upper surface will be below the upper surface of the platen, whereby the operator can, when he wishes to insert the check, depress the lower roller entirely out of the way of the sidewise movement of the check, and when the check is in place to be operated upon, the constraint being removed from the spring, the roller resumes its position slightly above the platen, where the check is held firmly between the upper and lower rollers, and moved endwise intermittently to be acted upon by the punches or cutters by the intermittent revolution of the lower roller.
The contention of the case is whether it was patentable to make this lower feed roller movable, so that it could be depressed below the platen,