95 F. 471 | 3rd Cir. | 1899
This is an appeal from a decree of the circuit court of the United States for the district of New Jersey, by which it was adjudged that the defendants below, by purchasing and using certain centrifugal pulverizing mills, known as the “Griffin Mills,” had infringed the first claim of letters patent No. 277,134, to Frank A. Huntington, for a crushing mill, which claim is as follows:
“(1) The pan, A, having the interior vertical circular die, F, in combination with the rollers, G, shafts, I, and means for suspending said shafts from above so that said rollers may rotate against the die by centrifugal force, substantially as herein described.”
We entertain no doubt of the validity of this patent, or of the meritorious character of (he invention to which it relates. The only question is, does the Griffin mill conflict with it? And the solution of this question depends upon the scope which should be accorded to the claim, with reference especially to the phrase, “means for suspending said shafts from above so that said rollers may rotate against the die by centrifugal force, substantially as herein described.” The; effect ascribed to this language by the appellees is that it covers and includes “every construction of centrifugal crushing mills in which the suspension of the rollers by means of shafts from above is combined with the simultaneous rotation of the rollers around the inner periphery of the die, and with rotation on their axis, and with pres
The views we have expressed respecting the construction of the patent are conclusive upon the question of infringement. The Griffin mill is unlike that of Huntington, not only in form and structure, but radically and in principle. It has but one roller, and that is not eccentrically, but centrally, suspended. Its shaft depends from a universal joint, and is not supported upon a cross or frame by a horizontal journal. Its roller is positively rotated by the driving pulley, and not by being brought against the die by centrifugal force. That 1 líese differences are substantial is .shown by the differences in operation which result from them. In the Griffin mill the roller is not thrown outward by centrifugal action, but would never leave its position over the center of the pan if it were not pulled or drawn outward by a workman. The universal joint of the Griffin mill, which to it is essential, could not be used in that of the patent. In short, we have reached the conclusion that, both in construction and in mode of operation, the two machines are essentially dissimilar, and that, therefore, they cannot be regarded as being, in the sense of the patent law, substantially identical. It follows that the decree of the dr-