after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.
Whilе patent cases are usually disposed of upon bill, answer, and proof, there is -no objection, if the patent be manifestly invalid upon its face, to the point being raised on demurrer, and the case being determined upon the issue so formed. We have repeatedly held that a patent may be declared invalid for want of novelty, though no such defence be set up in the answer.
Dunbar
v.
Myers,
The patent in question is for the combination of, (1) a fixed or stationary building ; (2) two railway tracts; (3) an еlevating apparatus; (4) elevator hopper scales, having a fixed оr stationary hopper, provided with a valve dr slide in its bottom; (5) a discharge spоut, arranged for discharging the grain directly from the hopper into a car.
The sеcond claim has the same combination duplicated, with the addition of a horizontal conveyor; the chutes JJ having therein doors or valves, and the slides or doors OO.
*302 It is not claimed that there is any novelty in any one of the elements of the above combination. They are all perfectly well known, and if not known in the cоmbination described, they are known in combinations so analogous that the cоurt is at liberty to judge for itself whether there be any invention in using them in the exact combinаtion claimed. We do not feel compelled to shut our eyes to a. faсt so well known as that elevators have, for many years, been used for transferring grain from railway cars to vessels lying alongside, and that this method involves the use of a railway track, entering a fixed or stationary building; an elevator apparatus; elevator hopper scales for weighing the grain ; and a discharge spout for discharging the grain into the vessel. There is certainly no novelty in using two railway tracks instеad of one, or in discharging the grain into a second car, instead of a storage bin or a vessel. Unless the combination accomplishes some new result, thе mere multiplicity of elements does not make it patentable. So long as еach element performs some old and well-known function, the result is not a patentable combination, but an aggregation of elements. Indeed, the multiplicity of elements may go on indefinitely without creating a patentable combination, unless by their collocation a- new result be produced. Thus, nothing would have beеn added to the legal aspect of the combination in question by introducing as new elements the car from which the transfer was made; the engine that drew such cаr; the steam shovel; the engine that operated the shovel and the elevator; as well as the locomotive which drew the loaded car from the building,though thеse are all indispensable features, since each of them is an old and wеll-known device, and performs a well-understood duty.
Suppose, for instance, it were old to run a railroad track into a station or depot for the recеption and discharge of passengers, it certainly would not be patentablе to locate such station between two railroad tracks for the -reception of passengers on both sides, and to add to the accommodatiоns a ticket office, a newspaper stand, a restaurant, and cigar stand, or tlie thousand and one things that are found in buildings of *303 that character. It might as well be clаimed that the man who* first introduced an elevator into a private house, it having bеen previously used in public buildings, was entitled to a patent for a new combination.
Not a new function or result is suggested by the combination in question. The cars run into the building on railway tracks, a§ they have done ever since railways were invented. The building is fixed and stationary, as buildings usually are. It is no novelty" that it should contain an elevating device, and that the latter should raise the grain to the hopper scale, and .shоuld discharge it either into a bin or a vessel, or into another car. In principle it makes no difference which.
In fact, the combination claimed is a pure aggregation, and • the decree of the court dismissing the bill is, therefore,
Affirmed.