Opinion ID: 1569284
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Hermani Patent.

Text: The claims relied on are Nos. 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 14, and 50. This patent covers the means of feeding the blank box parts to that point in the machine where the ears are formed, and then on to the pintle-inserting device. There is no claim of novelty in the ear-forming mechanism itself, or in the pintle insertion, which was covered by the earlier George Patent that we have already held invalid. The Hermani device put into related timed operation in one machine the formation of the ears on blank parts and the insertion of the pintle, by taking the blanks on a flat conveyor and carrying them by an intermittent movement to the station where the ears were made, and then on to where the pintle was put in. Both operations, after the machine had placed blanks at both stations, were performed at the same time, but on different blanks. It made the work entirely automatic, from the time the blanks were placed upon the conveyor. The defendant's machine claimed to infringe is that of the Marcell patent, No. 1,557,539, October 13, 1925. In the Marcell machine, the automatic feeding in timed relation is done by using, instead of a flat conveyor, a rather complicated revolving wheel or disc, which brings the blank parts to their proper stations successively, and allows them to remain at rest long enough for the ears to be punched out and for the pintles to be placed in position. When the machine is filled, both processes are likewise performed at the same time on different blanks. This brief statement indicates that the defendant's machine has little in common with the machine of the Hermani patent, except identity of result. The means of accomplishment are quite dissimilar, although both have an automatic feed to the ear-forming station, to the pintle insertion station, and out of the machine. A glance at the prior art shows that the novelty in Hermani must lie only in the specific means he has employed to bring old processes together in one machine, and put them to work automatically with a feeding mechanism. Automatic feeding is very old. One method is disclosed in the Trask patent, No. 869,998, November 5, 1907; one in Denmead, No. 949,756, February 22, 1910; one in McConachy, No. 1,149,201 August 10, 1915; while in Rais, No. 68,529, September 3, 1867, revolving discs very like the defendant's are used. In Hermani the blank box parts, after being put on the flat conveyor, are taken to the working stations by an intricate process which develops what was called in the testimony a sort of fourway movement, and there acted upon to produce the ears and insert the pintle. The working stations themselves do not move; while, in the defendant's machine, the blank parts are taken by the revolving disc to predetermined points, where they are held while the stations are moved to them and the work done. In view of the old processes it has at most but brought together to get results in a new way, the validity of the Hermani patent, in its escape from the claim of mere aggregation, is dependent upon its being held closely to its method of combination of the old separate parts. As so limited, it is not infringed by the defendant's machine. Compare Grinnell Washing Mach. Co. v. E. E. Johnson Co., 247 U. S. 426, 38 S. Ct. 547, 62 L. Ed. 1196; Gould & Eberhardt v. Cincinnati Shaper Co. (C. C. A.) 194 F. 680. Decree affirmed.