Bonsack Mach. Co. v. Elliott
Opinion of the Court
The complainants in the above-entitled causes applied for a rehearing upon two questions: (1) The proper interpretation of claims'10 and 12 of the Emery patent, No. 216,161; (2) the question of infringement, of said claims, — and the application was granted. The original opinion of the court states the fads in regard to the Hook, Abadie, and Emery belt patents (16 C. C. A. 250, 69 Fed. 335), but some repetition may be desirable. The Hook machine was the first attempt to manufacture a rolled and wrapped cigarette of indefinite length. It attempted to compress the tobacco into a filler, and to roll the wrapper about the filler simultaneously in tbe same trough or tube-forming die, and was a commercial failure on account of the resistance which the fibers of long-flbered tobacco made to being wrajiped before they had been thoroughly compressed. The Emery belt machine improved upon the Hook patent by adopting “the principle of forming the filler before beginning the wrapping operation. The filler was continuously formed before it reached the wrapper, in an endless traveling belt, curved around tbe tobacco by the walls of a chamber through which the belt passes. This endless belt separates from the tobacco filler as it delivers it to the paper wrapper and disappears beneath the table; but, after the paper strip lias been wrapped around the filler, and the overlapping edge pasted down, the belt, reappearing above the table, comes into action again, and is caused to encircle (be ■sealed cigarette rod with a close frictional contact, passing with it through a hollow cylinder or guide tube.” In the determina (.ion of the question of infringement by any subsequent and competing machine, it became, of course, important to ascert ain the scope of the Emery invention, and for this purpose to know its position in the history of the art. The complainants, who were anxious that the patent should occupy a large territory, desired that especial consideration should be given to its alleged primary character, and considered that the essential features of the Emery invention were that the filler should be formed in one set of devices and should be wrapped in another set, and that an endless belt should, as a carrier, connect the two sets, and that the particular kind of filler-
The question remains as to the proper construction of the Emery belt patent with the Abadie machine out of view. The Hook machine was a combined filler forming and wrapping device. Its successor was a separate filler-forming and filler-wrapping machine; and the complainants, without limiting themselves to the peculiarities of. either set of devices, and speaking in general terms, regard the claims 10 and 12 as covering any machine which forms the tobacco into a filler in one set, and subsequently wraps such formed filler in another set, provided the filler is carried from the filler-forming devices to the wrapping devices by an endless belt. This construction is broader than the invention, and gives far wider scope to the belt than it deserves. The invention was the described and claimed means by which the filler was formed and delivered to the wrapping devices, and consisted as much in the means by which it was formed as the means by which it was delivered. The expansion of the invention so as to make any fiat belt or ribbon which may-serve as a support and as a carrier correspond to the curved belt, which is a part of the forming mechanism, cannot be permitted. As it was said in the prior opinion: “The Emery belt was not a mere carrier. It was continually a forming and encircling tube. An endless belt, to serve simply as a carrier, has a different char
Reference
- Full Case Name
- BONSACK MACH. CO. v. ELLIOTT SAME v. NATIONAL CIGARETTE & TOBACCO CO.
- Status
- Published