John H. Miller and Dorr & Hadley, for complainant. HANFORD, District Judge (after stating the facts). I will proceed now to a consideration of the claims in their order, and the question whether either of them has been infringed by the defendants' machine. There are three elements in the first claim, viz., an endless traveling belt, a rigidly fixed stop-bar, and flexible spacing bars swinging over the belt. By this combination of devices the cans are introduced one by one into the heading machine. There is no originality in the devices nor in the combination. The sole merit of the claim consists in the adaptation of the combination to the work of bringing the cans in a vertical position, with the required rapidity and precision, within the influence of the other mechanism which places the caps upon them. In the defendants' machine we find the identical device of a carrying belt performing exactly the same work as the carrying belt in the Jensen machine, and operating in the same way, and flexible spacing bars, which, if not identical in form and mode of operation, certainly have the same office as similar devices in the Jensen machine, and they are so nearly alike in their construction and mode of operation as to be equivalents. Thus we find in the defendants' machine two of the three elements of this combination, but that is all. That the defendants' machine does not contain the stop-bar, E, of the Jensen machine, is admitted; but it is contended that in the operation of the defendants' machine the cans are stopped in their forward movement upon the traveling belt by a device which is equivalent to the bar, E. This contention is stoutly denied by the defendants, and the scientific experts who have testified in behalf of the complainant are, with respect to this point, flatly contradicted by the evidence for the defendants. It will be convenient now to refer to the accompanying drawings illustrating the different parts of the two machines in which the elements of the first claim are designated as follows: A traveling belt, A, the spacing bars by the letters j, j, and the stop-bar by the letter E. In the defendants' machine the traveling belt is numbered 59, the swinging spacing bars 79, and the secondary feeder, which removes the cans from the carrying belt and places them upon the plunger, is numbered 36. This feeder is a wheel, fixed upon a central axis, which rotates in a true circle above the carrying belt, the periphery of which, instead of being circular, is cut away so as to form four concave spaces or pockets, which, as the wheel rotates, partly encircle the cans, sweeping them off the belt upon a curved track slightly inclined, so as to carry them over the belt to the plungers, the cans being kept upon the curved track by a guard, designated 63. The periphery of the wheel, 36, between the four concavities is convex, and the mechanism is so adjusted that each can as it moves upon the belt comes first in contact with the convex portion of the wheel, and according to the testimony in behalf of the complainant the can is stopped in its forward movement when it first strikes the wheel before the concavity operates to change the direction of the can from the direct line of the traveling belt towards the curved track, so that the convex 119 F.-39 |