163 F. 846 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Eastern Pennsylvania | 1908
The patent in suit is for a pneumatic tool; the controversy being over that feature of it, by which, through a permanently open port or supply duct, live air is admitted to the rear of the piston or plunger cylinder, and the claims which cover it being given in the margin.1 The advantage claimed for this, in the specifications, is that “at the end of the back stroke the plunger will be cushioned by the live air entering the rear end of the plunger cylinder through the permanently open shallow channel” thereby provided, thus reducing the jar experienced in the use of tools of this character, which at the best is racking, and also preventing the piston or plunger from striking against the end of the piston chamber or valve block. It is also now further claimed to furnish an initial impulse in starting the plunger forward, so that it shall respond on the instant to the action of the motive fluid, which is of especial importance when the tool is held vertically, as in overhead riveting. But nothing of that kind is suggested in the patent, and is conceded by the inventor to be an afterthought. The defendants, in the tool which they put out, máke use of a permanent live air port, such as is so specified; but it is differently located, opening into the rear of the pistón chamber bade of the control valve, through which the plunger reciprocates, instead of immediately back of the plunger, and is not
i “20.' In a pneumatic tool, the combination with a plunger-cylinder provided with air inlet and exhaust'at its rear end and with a small duct at said end-for permanent admission of live air, of a plunger reciprocating in said cylinder, and means for returning said plunger to and against the air-cushion provided through said permanent air-supply duct, substantially as set forth. ,
“22. In a pneumatic tool, the combination of a plunger-cylinder having an inlet and exhaust port at each end and means for distributing the air to and from said ends and formed with a permanently open live air inlet port of small area at the inner end of its bore, and a plunger reciprocating in said cylinder and cushioned at its back stroke by the air admitted through said last-mentioned port, substantially as set forth.”.
The utility of the complainants’ device for the purpose designated is challenged, and is exceedingly doubtful under the showing made. The permanently open live air port, which is its feature, is declared by the inventor in a later patent to be unessential, although desirable to expedite the shifting of the valve, and is entirely omitted in a still later one, as it is in the one taken out by Secher & Greve in the complainants’ interest. By the experiments, also, which were put in
But, assuming that a small, permanently open, live air inlet, at the rear of the piston chamber, may possibly serve, to a certain degree, to cushion or relieve the jarring of the plunger, and so be of sufficient utility to be considered, there would seem, even so, to be nothing patentably inventive, in a device of that kind, over others of like character already to b;e found in the prior art. Those devices may be laid aside, in discussing this, which provide for cushioning the plunger solely by trapping' and compressing the motive fluid in the rear of the piston chamber, or in a recess or pocket back of that, except as they serve to show the use of such fluid for cushioning purposes, in one form or another, in reciprocating tools, to be common. But, on the other hand, no distinction is to be made by reason of the different motive force employed, whether steam or air; nor the size or particular use to which such tools are put, whether hand-held, for chipping, riveting, or hammering, or mounted on tripods or wheels, for rock drilling or quarrying, the structure and mode of operation in all being substantially alike. American Pneumatic Tool Co. v. Bigelow Co. (C. C.) 100 Fed. 467; American Pneumatic Tool Co. v. Philadelphia Pneumatic Tool Co. (C. C.) 123 Fed. 891.
Thus in the Sypher (1886) steam' drill — in which, by the way, the use of compressed air is also recognized — at the rear of, the piston chamber not only is there a pocket where the steam is confined, by which the -piston is cushioned on its back stroke, but in addition there are restricted ports for admitting live steam into the same, for the same purpose, as well as to start the piston forward from its extreme rearward position. The distinction is made, as to these restricted ports, that they are intermittently and not permanently open, being
The same is to be said of the two subsequent Syphers, improvements on the first, in each of which, while the piston is principally cushioned on the steam trapped or locked in the rear of the piston chamber by the closing by the piston of the supply and exhaust inlets, a restricted amount of live motive fluid is admitted into such cushioning space, by small inlet or leak ports additionally provided for the purpose, as it is said, of starting or lifting the piston in overhead work, and also, as declared in the one, of assisting to cushion it; the cushioning effect, whether claimed or not, necessarily existing in both, if 'it does in the device in suit. Here, too, no doubt, the leak ports are not at all times open; but they are when they are of any efficiency, which would seem to be all that is required. It may be noted in passing, with regard to the last (1892) Sypher, that in the location and function of this port it is closer to the defendants^ device than is that to the device of the patent.
In the Richmann (1880) rock drill, also, after the piston in its backward movement has closed the rear exhaust, the air back of it is trapped to form a cushion; a small live air port, leading into this part of the piston chamber, being closed by the outward pressure of the air against a plate valve, and, on the shifting of the control valve, admitting live air again to the rear of the piston, so as to start it forward, until taken up by the motive air supply coming in through the regular channels.
The Allen (1877) pneumatic hammer also provides for cushioning the piston by trapping the air at the rear of the piston chamber; a small live air port leading to it (which is closed for the time by a flap valve, so as not to waste the effect) admitting the motive fluid again to the rear of the piston, to start it forward.
In the Ross (British, 1898) hammer there is also the same double provision for reducing the shock of the back stroke: First, by the compression of the air back of the piston, after it has closed the rear exhaust port; and, second, by the direct introduction of the actuating fluid, through a permanently open live air port, to a cavity or recess, provided for the purpose, in the rear of the piston chamber, and separated from it by a movable end plate or diaphragm, this plate being kept in forward position by the pressure of the motive fluid admitted through the port, but yielding, as required, to the compression by the piston of the air in the piston chamber.
Except as to trapping the air, the construction of the Harrison (1882) coal mining machine is quite similar. Here, the same as in the Ross, there is a disc or plate at the rear of the piston chamber, pressed normally into forward position by live air admitted back of
So in the Wood (1873) rock drill, not only is the. air trapped or compressed in the rear of the piston chamber, but, by means of a movable head closing it, a cavity is formed back of that, into which live air is admitted through a small port, for the. purpose of still further cushioning the piston. This port is closed by a poppet valve against the escape of the motive fluid under the back pressure of the piston; but, the same as in the other cases mentioned above, it is opened whenever the admission of the fluid supply would be effective for cushioning purposes.
Again in the Boyer (1895-1897) chipping hammers the piston, after the shifting of the control valve, moves rearwardly against the resistance of an air cushion, formed by the live air admitted through small inlet ports thereby uncovered.
• In the Boyer (1901) long stroke hammer, however, the cushioning is effected solely by trapping and compressing the air in the rear of the piston chamber. And so is it in the hammer manufactured under the Boyer application of September 26, 1899, which application, although filed over two months before that of the patent in suit, is still pending and undisposed of. In this latter style of hammer, however, not only does the piston trap and compress the air in the bushing which forms the rear of the piston chamber, both cushioning it and serving to start it forward, but a small leak port is also shown in the shell valve, through which the piston reciprocates, which admits live air about the piston in its rearward position, and thence, as it is claimed, by reason of its loose fit, to the rear of the piston chamber, both assisting to cushion the piston, as it is said, as well as to start it forward. But the purpose of this leak port is to admit live air to act upon and' shift the valve, in advance and independently of that admitted through the rear main inlet, and the additional function which is claimed for it is, to say the least, doubtful. This style of hammer, moreover, was not devised until the summer of 1899, and while it Is said to have been manufactured and put out the same year, which would make it a part of the prior art from that time on, regardless of fhe disposition of the pending application, the evidence leaves it uncertain from just when it is to be so taken, which does away with much of the effect of this. If considered, however, as established in the art, by such use, in the fall of 1899, prior to the application for the patent in suit, its significance, even so,- consists solely in its showing a small leak port, of the same general character as that of the complainants’ tool, for the purpose of admitting live air intermittently into the piston chamber, about the piston, but not directly, at least, in the rear of it; neither the cushioning nor the starting of the piston, by such means, being effectively disclosed.
Summing up the results of this review, it thus .appears that in various reciprocating tools, operated by fluid motive force, long prior to the patent in suit, similar inlet or leak ports, in direct connection with the fluid supply, were extensively employed for the purpose of admitting such fluid to the rear of the piston or piston chamber, in
But, even assuming that there was possibly some small margin of invention in this rearrangement and adjustment of old parts, and that possession was thereby legitimately taken of an unoccupied portion of the inventive field, still the invention is necessarily a narrow one, being confined by existing devices to the particular arrangement shown, which the defendants have not appropriated, and do not, therefore, infringe. It may be that, taking the patent literally, this cannot be said; the claims being in terms fulfilled by the defendants’ device. But that does not altogether control. The fact is, as already pointed out, that, located as the defendants’ live air port is at the extreme rear of the piston chamber, and opening there into a pocket or recess in which the air is trapped, the device approaches much nearer to others already in use than it does to the one in suit. Differing from that of the patent, the function claimed for it is the starting of
The bill will be dismissed, with costs.