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Timestamp: 2019-04-22 22:24:54+00:00

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[261 U.S. 45, 46] This was a bill in equity charging the infringement of a patent and seeking an injunction, an accounting and damages. The patent, No. 845,224, issued to William Eibel, February 26, 1907. The application was filed August 22, 1906. The specifications de cribe the patent as for an improvement for Fourdrinier machines for paper making, and say that 'it has for its object to construct and arrange the machine whereby it may be run at a very much higher speed than heretofore and produce a more uniform sheet of paper which is strong, even and well formed.' The contention of the plaintiff, the petitioner here, is that his improvement was an important step in the art of paper making, and increased the daily product from 20 to 30 per cent.
The patent was held void by the District Court for the Western District of New York in the Case of Eibel Process Co. v. Remington-Martin Co., 226 Fed. 766 (1914). On appeal, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed the decree of dismissal in the District Court, sustained the patent, and found infringement of claims Nos. 1, 2 and 3, but did not pass upon claims Nos. 7, 8 and 12. 234 Fed. 624, 148 C. C. A. 390 (1916). The bill in the present case was filed in the District Court for Maine, January 1, 1917. That court in 1920 held the patent valid and entered a decree of injunction and for damages. 267 [261 U.S. 45, 47] Fed. 847. On appeal, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed the decree and directed the dismissal of the bill, 274 Fed. 540 ( 1921). Because of the conflict in the two circuits, certiorari was granted to review the latter decree.
In the flow box, or 'pond,' where the stream of pulp stock is stored, there is a gate or door, forming the end of the flow box, called the 'slice,' by lifting which the stock [261 U.S. 45, 48] is given the opportunity to flow upon the wire. The stream thus issuing is given a width of the desired sheet of paper and a depth regulated by the height to which the slice is lifted. The stream on the wire is prevented from flowing off the sides by 'deckle straps,' which are thick rubber bands, resting on each side of the wire at each side of the pulp. Traveling with the wire, they form lateral walls confining the stock till it is too dry to flow. Between the breast roll, where the stream of liquid stock strikes the wire, and the couch rolls, at the end of the surface length of the wire, there is a series of parallel horizontal rolls supporting the wire, called table rolls, and 20 feet from the breast roll there are placed, under the wire and in contact with it, three suction boxes in succession, in which a partial vacuum is maintained, and through them is sucked out the greater part of the water remaining in the wet sheet of the pulp. Placed above the wire, and just beyond the first suction box, is what is called the 'dandy roll,' which is faced with wire cloth. Its office is to impress the upper surface of the forming sheet of paper and give it a texture similar to that which the lower surface of the paper has from its contact with the wire. It may also carry the design which is to give the watermark to the sheet, if such a mark is desired. Beyond this is a larger roll, called the 'guide roll,' arranged with an automatic device varying its axis, so as to keep the wire straight. From the guide roll the wire drops below the plane to the couch rolls, already referred to.
Two figures accompany the specifications of the Eibel patent. Figure No. 1 shows the wire of the Fourdrinier machine in outline from the breast roll to the guide and couch rolls, with a screw device for raising and lowering [261 U.S. 45, 50] the breast roll and wire from the horizontal. The outline shows an elevation of the breast roll and wire, so that the angle between the wire and the horizontal at the guide roll is about 4 per cent., which in a surface length of 30 feet would mean an elevation of 12 inches at the breast roll. The other figure, No. 2, shows a device for regulating the speed of the wire applied at the lower couch roll.
1. A Fourdrinier machine, having the breast roll end of the paper- making wire maintained at a substantial elevation above the level, whereby the stock is caused to travel by gravity, rapidly in the direction of movement of the wire, and at a speed approximately equal to the speed of the wire, substantially as described.
2. A Fourdrinier machine having the breast roll end of the paper- making wire maintained at a high elevation, [261 U.S. 45, 51] whereby the stock is caused to travel by gravity faster than the normal speed of the wire for a certain grade of stock, and having means for increasing the speed of the machine to cause the wire to travel at substantially the same rate of speed as the rapidly-moving stock, substantially as described.
Messrs. Frederick P. Fish and Harrison F. Lyman, both of Boston, Mass ., for petitioner.
The plaintiff below introduced the patent and some evidence of infringement, and a single expert to explain the discovery and invention, and rested. Then the defendant brought in a mass of evidence to show prior discovery and use, to impeach the utility of plaintiff's alleged invention, and to demonstrate the indefiniteness of specification and claims. The fact that the adjudication of the [261 U.S. 45, 53] validity of the patent would impose a royalty on many of the paper manufacturers of the country who were not already licensees of the plaintiff led to the defendant's sending a circular letter to awaken the interest and secure the help of all so situated. This, as the record shows, had the effect to invoke offers of testimony on the critical points in the case from the unlicensed part of the trade. The plaintiff introduced a few witnesses in rebuttal as to particular details and the same expert as in chief. The plaintiff's case as presented on the record is largely the presumption of validity and novelty attaching to the patent and such evidence as comes from defendants' witnesses. A case that can be made out in all its elements by cross-examination of opposing witnesses is a strong case. Implication of facts and conditions falling from the mouths of witnesses when only collateral to the exact point of inquiry for which they are called is generally the most trustworthy evidence because the result of the natural, so to say, subconscious adherence to truth uninfluenced by a knowledge or perception of the bearing of the implication on the ultimate issue in the case.
A thorough examination of the whole voluminous record produces a satisfying conviction first that for years news print paper makers and manufacturers of paper-making machinery were engaged in seeking a method of increasing the speed of the news print machines, and that they had succeeded by improving the stock and by strengthening the parts in bringing the speed of the wire and the delivered paper up to between 500 and 600 feet a minute, but that when these high speeds were attained and maintained for any length of time, though they served to enable manufacturers to advertise such maximums, their continued and regular operation showed defects in the paper, which were only overcome by a reduction of speed to something less than 500 feet. As against advertisement, and the exuberant [261 U.S. 45, 54] memory of witnesses, the actual contemporaneous record of daily figures of production whenever brought to light justifies this conclusion. A leading manufacturer, one of the most enthusiastic witnesses on the subject of speed before Eibel produced a memorandum of a visit he made in October, 1904, less than two years before Eibel's application, to see the operation of a machine he had manufactured which he called 'the banner installation of the world' and made an entry in his diary, 'Grand sight-475 feet.' There is the usual unconscious straining of memory without written record carried back 10 or 15 years, but the evidence on the whole is satisfying that the practical speed for the regular production of good news print paper never much exceeded that speed which had gratified the pride of this witness. A typical case is in that of machines made by Bagley & Sewall, large manufacturers of paper-making machines for the Laurentide Paper Company. The president of Bagley & Sewall testified that the speed of the machine was 552 feet a minute with satisfactory paper, and that he visited Laurentide in October, 1904, and counted the revolutions himself. He produced a letter from Mr. Chahoon, of the Laurentide Company, of about the same date confirming his statement of the count and the satisfactory product and an advertisement of Bagley & Sewall to the same effect of January, 1905. In rebuttal, a monthly record of the work of the machine is produced by the foreman at Laurentide for this same machine from January, 1905 to December, 1906, showing the speed to vary from a maximum of 518 in 1905, to 475 in 1908, with a genera average of less than 500, and an explanation that the high speeds did not make a good product and were reduced. Our conclusion is confirmed, and indeed the importance of the issue of fact as to maximum speed before Eibel is minimized by the circumstance, uncontroverted, that the owners of these fastest machines, at once upon Eibel's publication [261 U.S. 45, 55] of his discovery, adopted his pitch and increased their product.
Defendant attempts to break the effect of this evidence by showing that five of the largest paper manufacturers who are licensees of Eibel are also shareholders in the Eibel Process Company, the plaintiff, and that they make 2,200 tons of the 5,000 tons of paper made daily in the United States. This circumstance seems to have had influence with the Circuit Court of Appeals. There are, however, 10 other paper-making companies, not shareholders, who are licensees and use the Eibel pitch, and whose aggregate production is 1,200 tons a day; and what is equally significant, 13 other companies have contributed [261 U.S. 45, 56] to a fund to help in resisting the establishment of the right of Eibel to claim a royalty for the use of this high or substantial pitch of the wire in the making of paper. Presumably they, too, find it wise to use the Eibel pitch. The paper makers in this country, who do not use the Eibel pitch, therefore, are few. It can hardly be that dividends on the shares of stock in the Eibel Company held by the five large companies would furnish motive enough for them to continue to be licensees, and to use something that was not of great advantage to them in their chief business of making of paper, and certainly no such motive would explain the action of the licensees, who are not stockholders, or that of the infringers, in continuing to use the Eibel pitch. It should be said that one of the large manufacturers of paper-making machinery called by the defendant said that since 1907 he had not installed a single machine without the Eibel pitch.
The Bayliss Austin Machine, one of three chiefly relied on to show prior use, was made by the Horne Company and was designed by Barrett and Horne on the model of this patent. It is very clear, from an examination of the design and contract for this machine, that the pitch of the wire in it could not have exceeded 3 inches, and that it was used for drainage. Other patents were set up in defense; some of them showing devices for raising the breast roll and wire above the level, and lowering them below the level for the purpose of drainage. The angle of elevation and depression was always small. There was a constant straining by the witnesses for the defense to increase the elevation before Eibel. On the direct examination they began with a positive assertion that a pitch of 4, 5, and even 6 inches, had been used in certain machines before Eibel's time; but written records, contracts, and specifications brought out on cross-examination show nothing more than 3 inches provided for purpose of drainage, and not more than that was used. This is not to say that witnesses in the face of such records did not testify to a higher elevation; but in such cases the amount of elevation rested in memory running back more than 10 or 15 years, a memory stimulated by the subsequent high pitches of Eibel and the retrospect of the [261 U.S. 45, 60] progress that now seems so easy and clear to every one. There was, too, always indefiniteness as to when such increase in elevation of the wire had taken place, whether before or after August, 1906, Eibel's date, and there was no evidence of weight, we think, after a full examination of the record, sufficient to justify a finding that such elevations had ever exceeded 3 inches before his application.
This is confirmed by the fact that greater elevation was not needed for the purpose of drainage for which it was devised and used. It is true that some witnesses testify that they realized, before Eibel's application, that speeding up the stock to equal velocity with the wire would solve the difficulty and aid the speed. But there is not a single written record, letter, or specification of prior date to Eibel's application that discloses any such discovery by any one, or the use of the pitch of the wire to aid the speed of the mechine. The oral evidence on this point falls far short of being enough to overcome the presumption of novelty from the granting of the patent. The temptation to remember in such cases and the ease with which honest witnesses can convince themselves after many years of having had a conception at the basis of a valuable patent, are well known in this branch of law, and have properly led to a rule that evidence to prove prior discovery must be clear and satisfactory. Barbed Wire Patent Case, 143 U.S. 275, 284 , 12 S. Sup. Ct. 443; Loom Co. v. Higgins, 105 U.S. 580 , 591. Indeed, when we consider the indisputable fact that Eibel's successful experiment at Rhinelander and his application for a patent surprised the whole paper trade, and that for a short time many held back from risking so radical a change and then all adopted it, oral evidence that some persons had discovered the source of trouble and the means of remedying it some years before Eibel is incredible. We are confirmed in this conclusion by the finding of Judge Hale in the District Court, which is not [261 U.S. 45, 61] offset by the reversal of his decree in the Circuit Court of Appeals, because that court seems to have reached its conclusion chiefly on other grounds yet to be considered.
Many calculations were made by defendant's expert Carter, based on the laws of hydraulic pressure and flow, to show that, under varying conditions of head and pitch and the speed of the wire, the chief factor would be head, the next the 'drag' or carrying effect of the wire, and the least in degree and importance in making the velocity of the stock and the wire equal would be the pitch, and that Eibel's invention could not be present, because the 'drag' of the wire and its influence upon the speed of the stock must be eliminated under Eibel's specifications. We do not so understand it. As the stock descends upon the wire with the head of the flow box, it is thin and liquid, the wire at its greater speed necessarily imparts additional [261 U.S. 45, 62] speed to the stock, and in its unformed fluidity the added speed does not disturb or ripple the stock to the injury of the process of paper making. It is only after the stock proceeds a third or a half of the surface length of the wire that the point is reached where the overspeed of the drag becomes troublesome in the felting or formation of the web of the pulp. Before that point is reached, the 'drag' may be useful in bringing the speed of the stock nearer to that of the wire without injury. The truth seems to be, and this is brought out with force in the testimony of the defendant's expert witness Livermore, that while it is possibel to calculate to a nicety the velocity of the free flowing liquid stock due to head and pitch, when unaffected by drainage, variation in viscosity and fluidity, and the like, yet, when these conditions are present, as they always are, and the other less calculable factor of the drag of the wire enters the problem, there is no means, short of actual experiment, to enable one to anticipate results, and it is quite impossible to apportion to each factor its real influence. This fact reflects on the question whether Eibel's discovery was invention rather than the mere obvious and simple application of known natural forces.
The defendant introduced expert evidence to show that with a head of 2 1/4 inches in the flow box and a speed of 585 feet to the minute in the wire, and excluding the factor of 'drag' of the wire, it would require an elevation of 48 inches to make up the difference in speed of the stock given by the head and the speed of the wire at a distance 10 feet from the point of discharge on the wire. The conclusion drawn from this seems to be that, as no practical machine uses 48 inches pitch, the Eibel invention has never been used or infringed. Disregarding its error in omitting necessary factors already adverted to, this reasoning seems to us to depend on too narrow a construction of the patent. [261 U.S. 45, 63] In administering the patent law, the court first looks into the art, to find what the real merit of the alleged discovery or invention is, and whether it has advanced the art substantially. If it has done so, then the court is liberal in its construction of the patent, to secure to the inventor the reward he deserves. If what he has done works only a slight step forward, and that which he says is a discovery is on the border line between mere mechanical change and real invention, then his patent, if sustained, will be given a narrow scope, and infringement will be found only in approximate copies of the new device. It is this differing attitude of the courts toward genuine discoveries and slight improvements that reconciles the sometimes apparently conflicting instances of construing specifications and the finding of equivalents in alleged infringements. In the case before us, for the reasons we have already reviewed, we think that Eibel made a very useful discovery, which has substantially advanced the art. His was not a pioneer patent, creating a new art; but a patent which is only an improvement on an old machine may be very meritorious, and entitled to liberal treatment. Indeed, when one notes the crude working of machines of famous pioneer inventions and discoveries, and compares them with the modern machines and processes exemplifying the principle of the pioneer discovery, one hesitates in the division of credit between the original inventor and the improvers, and certainly finds no reason to withhold from the really meritorious improver, the application of the rule 'ut res magis valeat quam pereat,' which has been sustained in so many cases in this court. Winans v. Denmead, 15 How. 338, 341; Corning v. Burden, 15 How. 265, 269; Turrill v. Railroad Co., 1 Wall. 491, 510; Rubber Co. v. Goodyear, 9 Wall. 788, 795; McClain v. Ortmayer, 141 U.S. 419, 425 , 12 S. Sup. Ct. 76.
The Circuit Court of Appeals questions the assumption that gravity was a new factor with Eibel, because the head of the flow box is only another application of the force of gravity. This is a mere criticism of a term, which, whether accurate or not, is not misleading. What Eibel was dealing with in his patent as a new factor was the additional [261 U.S. 45, 65] force acquired by the pitch of the wire, and that he called gravity; and Judge Hale, in the passage quoted, uses the word with the same meaning, and without any confusion to the reader.
The next objection to the patent, which prevailed in the Circuit Court of Appeals, is that its terms are too vague, because the extent of the factor of pitch is not defined, except by the terms 'substantial' and 'high.' The figure accompanying the specification and illustrating the improvement indicates an angle of 4 per cent., or an elevation of 12 inches, and the reference to the small elevations for drainage shown in earlier devices indicated that the patentee had in mind elevations substantial as compared with them, in order to achieve his purpose of substantially increasing the speed of the stock. It was difficult for him to be more definite, due to the varying conditions of speed and stock existing in the operations of Fourdrinier machines and the necessary variation in the pitch to be used to accomplish the purpose of his invention. Indefiniteness is objectionable, because the patent does not disclose to the public how the discovery, if there is one, can be made useful, and how its infringement may be avoided. We do not think any such consequences are involved here. This patent and its specifications were manifested to readers who were skilled in the art of paper making and versed in the use of the Fourdrinier machine. The evidence discloses that one, so skilled, had no difficulty, [261 U.S. 45, 66] when his attention was called to their importance, in fixing the place of the disturbance and ripples to be removed, or in determining what was the substantial pitch needed to equalize the speeds of the stock and wire at that place. The immediate and successful use of the pitch for this purpose by the owners of the then fastest machines and by the whole trade is convincing proof that one versed in paper making could find in Eibel's specifications all he needed to know, to avail himself of the invention. Expressions quite as indefinite as 'high' and 'substantial,' in describing an invention or discovery, in patent specifications and claims, have been recognized by this court as sufficient. In Tilghman v. Proctor, 102 U.S. 707 , the claim sustained was for 'the manufacturing of fat acids and glycerine from fatty bodies by the action of water at a high temperature and pressure.' See, also, Rubber Co. v. Goodyear, 9 Wall. 788, 794; Mowry v. Whitney, 14 Wall. 620, 629; Lawther v. Hamilton, 124 U.S. 1, 9 , 8 S. Sup. Ct. 342; Carnegie Steel Co. v. Cambria Iron Co., 185 U.S. 403, 436 , 22 S. Sup. Ct. 698; Abercrombie & Fitch Co. v. Baldwin, 245 U.S. 198, 205 , 38 S. Sup. Ct. 104.
It is contended on behalf of the defendant that, whether Barrett and Horne perceived the advantage of speeding up the stock to an equality with the wire, yet the necessary effect of their devices was to achieve that result, and therefore their machine anticipated Eibel. In the first place, we find no evidence that any pitch of the wire, used before Eibel, had brought about such a result as that sought by him, and, in the second place, if it had done so under unusual conditions, accidental results, not intended and not appreciated, do not constitute anticipation. Tilghman v. Proctor, 102 U.S. 707 , 711; Pittsburgh Reduction Co. v. Cowles Electric Co. (C. C.) 55 Fed. 301, 307; Andrews v. Carman, 13 Blatchford, 307, 323, Fed. Cas. No. 371.
In considering this phase of the controversy, we must not lose sight of the fact that one essential part of Eibel's discovery was that the trouble causing the defective paper product under high machine speed was in the disturbance and ripples some 10 feet from the discharge, and that [261 U.S. 45, 68] they were due to the unequal speeds of stock and wire at that point and could be removed by equalizing the speeds. The invention was not the mere use of a high or substantial pitch to remedy a known source of trouble. It was the discovery of the source not before known, and the application of the remedy, for which Eibel was entitled to be rewarded in his patent. Had the trouble which Eibel sought to remedy been the well-known difficulty of too great wetness or dryness of the web at the dandy roll, and had he found that a higher rather than a lower pitch would do that work better, a patent for this improvement might well have been attacked on the ground that he was seeking monopoly for a mere matter of degree. But that is not this case. On the other hand, if all knew that the source of the trouble Eibel was seeking to remedy was where he found it to be, and also knew that increased speed of the stock would remedy it, doubtless it would not have been invention on his part to use the pitch of the wire to increase the speed of the stock, when such pitch had been used before to do the same thing, although for a different purpose and in less degree. We cannot agree with the Circuit Court of Appeals that the causal connection between the unequal speeds of the stock and the wire, and the disturbance and rippling of the stock, and between the latter and the defective quality of the paper in high speeds of the machine, was so obvious that perception of it did not involve discovery which will support a patent. The fact that in a decade of an eager quest for higher speeds this important chain of circumstances had escaped observation, the fact that no one had applied a remedy for the consequent trouble until Eibel, and the final fact that, when he made known his discovery, all adopted his remedy, leave no doubt in our minds that what he saw and did was not obvious, and involve discovery and invention.
The Circuit Court of Appeals dwells on the fact that the use of the pitch of wire was not really the introduction [261 U.S. 45, 69] of a new factor in the solution of the problem, because the same result would have followed if the head of the flow box had been made greater, in order increase by gravity the speed of the stock. Doubtless this could have been done. There were difficulties, however, in such a method, when Eibel's application was filed, because in the then machines the flow box as supported by an apron over the wire, and the necessary addition to the weight of the stock in the flow box, in increasing the head. Would have interfered with the free working of the wire. Since that time an improvement has been adopted, by which the flow box does not rest on the wire, and additional head can be imparted to the stock. The defendant invites attention to the fact that one or two paper makers are increasing this head and giving up the pitch, for the purpose of increasing the speed of the stock. We do not see that these circumstances in any way affect the validity of the Eibel patent. If defendant or others can do what Eibel accomplished in another way, and by means he did not include in his specifications and claims, i. e., by additional head and the abandonment of a substantial pitch, they are at liberty to do so and avoid infringement.
We come finally to the question of infringement. If the Eibel patent is to be construed as we have construed it, there can be no doubt that the defendant uses the Eibel invention. The device which the defendant uses for tilting the wire-i. e., by shimming blocks-and that for regulating and increasing the speed of the wire are plainly equivalents of the same elements in the new combination, which Eibel shows in his drawings and specifications. The defendant uses a Fourdrinier machine having the breast roll end of the paper-making wire maintained at an elevation of 15 inches above the level whereby the stock is caused to travel by gravity rapidly in the direction of the movement of the wire, and at a speed approximately [261 U.S. 45, 70] equal to the speed of the wire substantially as described. This brings the defendant's machines within the first claim of the patent, if 15 inches is a substantial elevation of the making wire, as all the witnesses concede that it is. The same conclusion must be reached as to the second claim, because the defendant uses a machine 'having the breast roll end of the paper making wire maintained at a high elevation, whereby the stock is caused to travel by gravity faster than the normal speed of the wire for a certain grade of stock, and having means for increasing the speed of the machine to cause the wire to travel at substantially the same rate of speed as the rapidly moving stock, substantially as described.' The same thing is true of the third claim.
[ Footnote 1 ] It is true that defendant's expert, Carter, points out that in some of the machines of the prior art, in which means were provided for tilting up the wire, the tilting was confined to that part of the surface length covered by the shake frame, say 18 feet, and did not extend to the first suction box; whereas, Eibel's tilting involved the entire surface length of 30 feet. It would follow from this that the elevation of 3 inches in such machines would mean a greater angle of declination than 3 inches for the full surface length and that the disparity between 3 inches and 12 inches was not so great as the figures would lead one to think. But, whatever difference this might make, the fact remains that Eibel's pitch was substantially greater than anything in the prior art.

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