Court Opinion

ID: 91240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2010-04-28 16:03:12+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:26:16.022881
License: Public Domain

112 U.S. 659 (1884)
TORRENT ARMS LUMBER COMPANY
v.
RODGERS.
Supreme Court of United States.
Argued November 25, 1884.
Decided December 22, 1884.
IN ERROR TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN.
*666 Mr. B.F. Thurston and Mr. George W. Dyer for plaintiff in error.
Mr. C.C. Chamberlain for defendant in error.
MR. JUSTICE WOODS delivered the opinion of the court. He recited the facts as above stated, and continued:
The refusal of the court to direct the jury to return a verdict for the defendant is, among other things, assigned for error. We think the charge requested should have been given, because, in our opinion, the first claim of the reissued patent, which is the only one that the plaintiff insisted had been infringed, is void.
The testimony showed that it was the practice in saw-mills to "slab" the logs after they were placed on the carriage, that is, to saw off slabs on two or four sides of the log. To accomplish this it was necessary that the log should be turned on the carriage. An inspection of the drawings and specification of Esau Tarrant's original patent shows that his device was for the turning of logs upon their axes when placed upon the carriage of a saw-mill, so that the opposite parts of the log might be successively presented to the saw and slabs cut therefrom. It was no part of the purpose of the contrivance to roll the log from one place to another, as from one part of the log-deck to another, or from the log-deck to the carriage. On the contrary, the drawing shows that the device was so made as to prevent the rolling of the log from one place to another. This was accomplished by knees considerably higher than the diameter of the log, against which the log was pressed, and which held it in position and formed part of the means by which the log was made to revolve on its axis. When placed in contact with the knees, the log was in the right position to be subjected *667 to the action of the saw. It is not possible with this device to roll the log from one place to another except by raising it, if that could be done, to the top of the knees and tumbling it over them to the other side; and, if this were done, it would defeat the object of the invention by moving the log off the carriage and away from the saw.
In the reissue the specification is modified so as to make a radical change, not only in the purpose, but in the mechanism of the invention. In the original patent the invention was declared to be an improved device for turning or rolling logs upon the carriage of a saw-mill. In the reissue the invention was declared to be a device for turning or rolling logs to or upon the carriage. The device, as described in the reissued patent, is adapted, not only to turn logs on their axes, but to roll them from one place to another, as from one part of the log-deck to another, or from the log-deck to and upon the carriage. This requires a change of mechanism. To turn a log when on the carriage without change of its location requires that the toothed-bar should be placed as closely as possible to the side, or within the side of, the carriage, and there must be knees to prevent a change in the location of the log. To roll a log to the carriage, or to roll a log from the log-deck upon the carriage, the toothed-bar must be at a distance from the carriage at least as great as the diameter of the log, and the slot in which it works must be extended accordingly, and the knees are not only unnecessary, but would be an obstruction to the operation of the device.
The movement of a toothed-bar in turning a log on a carriage against the resistance of the knees is necessarily in the same plane, while the movement of a toothed-bar in rolling a log toward or upon a carriage is necessarily in constantly changing planes, as the bar follows the changing position of the log.
The change of the specification, therefore, includes an omission of the knees, a change in the location of the toothed-bar, a change in its movements, and a change in the effect produced by its movements. The reissue, consequently, covers a different invention from that described in the original patent. It *668 embraces a different machine, intended for different purposes and performing different functions, from that described in the original patent.
When we turn to the claims of the reissued patent we find a corresponding enlargement of the scope of the patent. The claims of the original patent are substantially reproduced in the reissued patent, except that a combination instead of an arrangement of the different parts was claimed. But a new claim is added, namely, the first, which is as follows: "The toothed-bar herein described operating substantially in the manner and for the purpose described."
Each of the claims of the original patent was for a combination. But the first claim of the reissue covers the toothed-bar operating substantially in the manner described, without reference to the mechanism by which it was moved, segregated from the combination and claimed as a distinct invention of the patentee.
The operation of the toothed-bar is enlarged in the first claim of the reissue. In the original patent it was used in connection with the knees set upon the log carriage to prevent the log changing its place and to aid in giving the log a rotary motion on its axis. In the first claim of the reissue, construed in connection with the changed specification, the toothed-bar may be used with or without the knees. The knees are used when the toothed-bar is employed for revolving the log on its axis, and they are omitted when the toothed-bar is used for rolling the log over and moving it from one place to another. Both the specification and claims of the reissue are enlarged to include an invention not described or included in the original patent.
The application of John Torrent for his patent dated August 12, 1873, was filed January 29, 1873. The invention covered by his patent was the alleged infringing machine used by the defendant. After the patent of John Torrent had been applied for, and his invention fully described in his application, and nearly five years after the grant of the original letters patent to Esau Torrent, the latter applied for the reissue with its expanded specification and claims. The reissue was clearly intended to forestall John Torrent's invention and include it in *669 the claims of the reissued patent of Esau Tarrant. We find, therefore, that the specification and first claim of the reissue was an enlargement of the claims of the original patent, and covered an invention not covered or described therein; that the reissue was not applied for until nearly five years after the date of the original patent, and not until another inventor had made a substantial advance in the art to which the original patent belonged, which the assignee of the original invention, it may be fairly inferred, desired to include in the monopoly of his patent, and that he sought to accomplish this by its reissue. The first claim of the reissued patent was therefore void. This conclusion is sustained by many decisions of this court, some of which may be found in the following cases: Gill v. Wells, 22 Wall. 1; Wood Paper Patent, 23 Wall. 566; Powder Co. v. Powder Works, 98 U.S. 126; Ball v. Langles, 102 U.S. 128; James v. Campbell, 104 U.S. 356; Heald v. Rice, 104 U.S. 737; Miller v. Brass Co., 104 U.S. 350; Johnson v. Railroad Co., 105 U.S. 539; Bantz v. Frantz, 105 U.S. 160; Wing v. Anthony, 106 U.S. 142. Especial attention is called to three decisions of this court which are peculiarly apposite: Clements v. Odorless Excavating Co., 109 U.S. 641; McMurray v. Mallory, 111 U.S. 96, and Mahn v. Harwood, ante, 354.
It follows, from the views we have expressed, that the plaintiff below failed to show any cause of action against the defendant. The court should, therefore, have charged the jury, as requested, to return a verdict for the defendant. Its refusal to do so was error, for which
The judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded to the Circuit Court, with instructions to grant a new trial.