Letters patent No. 301,720, issued July 8, 1884, to Albert L.
Ide for new and useful improvements in steam engine governors are
void for want of novelty in the invention claimed in the
specification.
Page 149 U. S. 551
This was a bill in equity for the infringement of letters patent
No. 301,720, issued July 8, 1884, to the plaintiff, Ide, for a
steam engine governor. Another patent, No. 308,498, issued to the
same party November 25, 1884, was originally embraced in the bill,
but upon the trial in the court below, the charge relative to this
patent was not pressed, and the case was rested wholly upon No.
301,720.
"This invention," said the patentee, in his specification,
"relates to that class of steam engine governors known as
'flywheel governors,' and has for its primary object to provide
means for holding the eccentric steadily in its proper poised
position, in opposition to the tendency of certain extraneous
forces which are calculated to disturb the movements of the valve
as sought to be determined by the balanced forces of weights and
springs when the engine is in motion."
"To this end, the invention consists in the combination of a
dashpot with the governor and pulley, said dashpot connected with a
fixed and movable part, or with two relatively or unequally movable
parts -- as, for example, with the extremity of a weight lever and
the pulley hub. In this class of governors, the position of the
eccentric is variably determined by the opposing and self-balancing
forces exerted by the centripetally acting spring or springs, and
the centrifugally acting weight or weights connected with said
springs, the tendency being to hold the eccentric permanently in a
certain poised position for a given speed of the wheel to which the
governor is applied, and to vary the position of the eccentric
exactly as the speed of said wheel is varied. There are, however,
certain temporarily acting causes of disturbance, calculated to
change the position of the eccentric independently of the speed of
the wheel. . . . At a regular and very high speed of the governor
wheel or pulley, these disturbing forces operate but slightly,
owing to the momentum of the weights, which serve to prevent their
deflection from a regular course, but at lower speeds than that at
which the apparatus is adjusted to run, and particularly in
accelerating or retarding the engine, as in starting up or slowing
down, these incidental disturbing forces interfere materially with
the valve action and give an objectionable
Page 149 U. S. 552
irregularity to the movements of the weights. In the case of an
engine used for running a dynamo for electric lighting purposes and
subject to sudden and wide changes in requisitions of power and
speed, the effects of the disturbances referred to manifest
themselves also in the quality or intensity of the lights. A
dashpot constructed and attached to the apparatus in such a manner
as to prevent sudden movements of the weight levers or of the
eccentric is found in practice to wholly overcome the defects
indicated, and to give a desirable steadiness and regularity to the
movements of the movable parts of the governor, as well as accuracy
and reliability to the cut-off action of the valve."
After giving a description of the device by reference to the
drawings, the patentee added:
"The cylinder of the dashpot is filled with glycerine or some
other noncompressible liquid, preferably one that is also not
congealable at a temperature to which the engine is likely to be
exposed. By means of the dashpot applied to the relatively movable
and stationary parts or to the unequally moving parts, as
described, wide and sudden radial movements of the weights, E', are
prevented and, as a consequence, the governor will have a steady
and efficient action at all speeds of the pulley or wheel to which
said governor is applied. . . . The dashpot, while preferably
connected with the end of the lever, E, may obviously be attached
to the eccentric itself, and to a fixed or less movable part of the
apparatus."
The single claim of the patent was as follows: "In a flywheel
governor, the combination, with relatively moving parts, of a
dashpot, substantially as described."
The defendants set up in their answer the invalidity of the
patent by reason of prior use, and also noninfringement. Upon a
hearing in the court below upon pleadings and proofs, the bill was
dismissed upon the ground of want of novelty, 39 F. 548, and
plaintiff appealed to this Court
Page 149 U. S. 553
MR. JUSTICE BROWN, after stating the facts in the foregoing
language, delivered the opinion of the Court.
The stress of this case is upon the novelty of the invention
covered by the patent of July 8, 1884, to the plaintiff, Albert L.
Ide.
Both the plaintiff and defendant are manufacturers and dealers
in a particular type of steam engines known as "electric lighting
engines," and used for generating and controlling the electric
lighting circuits now in common use, principally under the
incandescent system.
The governors used upon these engines are not the old and
familiar flyball governors, but consist of weights whose
centrifugal action is counterbalanced by centripetally acting
springs, attached to the lever by which the weights are suspended,
the object of which is to hold the eccentric constantly in a fixed
position for a given speed of the wheel and to vary the position of
the eccentric exactly as the speed of the wheel is varied. This
style of governor is enclosed either within the flywheel or some
other wheel connected and revolving with the shaft. It was found,
however, that when the burden of the engine was suddenly lifted by
the extinguishment of a large number of lights, there was a
tendency on the part of the governor to "race," as it is termed,
causing an unsteadiness and irregularity in the speed of the
engine, which in its turn produced an objectionable pulsation and
variation in the intensity of the lights. It was also found to
operate destructively upon the carbon filaments of which the
illuminants are composed. For the purpose of obviating this
difficulty and producing a perfectly isochronous movement of the
engine under extreme changes of load, plaintiff attached to the
governor what it called a "dashpot" -- a device in common use for
easing the shutting of spring doors, and preventing slamming. As
used upon doors, it consists simply of a closed cylinder filled
with air and a piston having a passage or leak through or around
it. When used in connection with the governor of a steam engine,
the cylinder is filled with glycerine or other similar fluid. A
dashpot thus constructed and attached
Page 149 U. S. 554
to the apparatus in such manner as to prevent sudden movement of
the weight levers or of the eccentric is found in practice to
overcome the defect indicated and to give a desirable steadiness
and regularity to the movements of the governor, as well as
accuracy to the cut-off action of the valve.
Mr. Ide was not, however, the first to discover the value of a
dashpot in connection with the governor of a steam engine. As early
as 1880, the Buckeye Engine Company of Salem, Ohio, one of the
largest manufacturers of steam engines in the country, constructed
engines in which the governor consisted of a metal disk clamped
upon the driving shaft, such disk being about forty inches in
diameter and weighing in the neighborhood of 200 pounds. These
disks were used simply as a casing to enclose the governor, which
was equipped with arms arranged to swing by centrifugal force as
the shaft revolved, and kept from swinging too freely by springs
acting centripetally. In this connection, the superintendent of the
Hartford Engineering Company testified that he had a case of what
is called the "racing" of a governor on a pair of engines running
in the Hartford Carpet Company, in Thompsonville, Connecticut. To
use his own words:
"I took the foreman of the engine shop with me to the factory
and attempted to correct the trouble. We were unsuccessful. We then
determined to put on dashpots filled with oil or similar fluid, as
the Buckeye people had done in similar cases. Within a short time,
the dashpots were made, sent to the Hartford Carpet Co., and
attached to the governor by their men. Mr. Steele, the engineer in
chief, came to the shop a few days later and reported most
excellent results from the application of the dashpots."
This testimony was corroborated by that of Steele, the engineer,
who swore the dashpots were applied in 1881, had been constantly in
use since, and had performed their work satisfactorily.
It also appeared that a similar dashpot had been attached to an
engine run by the Hartford Manilla Company of Burnside,
Connecticut, and that the results there were equally satisfactory.
There was also evidence of the employment of Buckeye engines at the
Pacific Elevator in Brooklyn, to the
Page 149 U. S. 555
governors of which was attached a dashpot to prevent any sudden,
violent fluctuation of the governor. These governors were located
upon the opposite ends of the main shaft, but not in the flywheels.
A similar dashpot was attached to the governor of a Buckeye engine
at the Syracuse Iron Works. None of these governors, however, was
attached to the flywheels of the engine, but upon a separate wheel,
mounted upon the shaft, and revolving with it.
There was some testimony that the Buckeye engines were defective
in their construction or operation, and that the dashpots were put
into the governors to prevent the engines from wrecking themselves,
and to avoid suits for damages. But however this may be, the
testimony is uncontradicted that the addition of the dashpots had
the desired effect of steadying the action of the governor.
As the testimony, then, demonstrates that governors without
dashpots had been attached indiscriminately, not only to the old
flyball governor, but to the shaft governors, whether connected
with the flywheel or the pulley wheel or a separate wheel of their
own connected with the shaft, and that a governor with a dashpot
had also been attached to a separate wheel revolving with the
shaft, the invention of Ide consists only in removing the governor,
with the dashpot, from a separate wheel to the flywheel. If the
dashpot performed any new function when attached to a governor in
the flywheel, such change in location might be the basis of a
patent, but the testimony is that it was attached to the Buckeye
governors for the very purpose for which Mr. Ide attached it to his
governor, and that it accomplished that purpose to the entire
satisfaction of the parties interested.
It is true that plaintiff claims certain advantages from
locating his governor in the flywheel of the engine, which is very
much larger than the special wheel used for the governor in the
Buckeye engines, but these advantages seem to be largely fanciful,
such as existed before the dashpot was added, and in any event are
not such as rise to the dignity of invention. They were advantages
which a governor placed in a flywheel has over a governor placed in
any other wheel,
Page 149 U. S. 556
but to which the addition of the dashpot contributed nothing
new. It is evident that plaintiff, in taking out his patent,
supposed that he had first discovered the advantage of attaching a
dashpot to the class of governors known as shaft or shifting
eccentric governors, and when confronted with the Buckeye
governors, sought to limit his patent to a dashpot connected with a
governor located in the flywheel, and to discover some special
advantage to be gained by locating it there, instead of in any
other wheel revolving upon the shaft.
The introduction of these governors seems to have resulted in a
large increase in plaintiff's business and in the establishment of
agencies in all the principal cities for selling engines containing
this improvement. While this may have been occasioned by his
introduction of the dashpot, he has no right to a monopoly of this
feature, since he had been anticipated in this particular by the
Buckeye engines. The only novelty he has any possible right to
claim is in the application of this style of governor, with the
dashpot, to an electric lighting engine, which seems to have been
the thing needed to obviate the difficulty of a variable intensity
of light and to secure the requisite steadiness; but this is not
what is claimed in the patent. There can be no doubt that if the
attachment of a dashpot to a shaft governor had been a novelty at
the time his patent was taken out, the Buckeye governors would have
been an infringement. This being so, it is equally clear that,
existing as they did before his patent, they are an
anticipation.
The decree of the court below dismissing the bill is
therefore
Affirmed.
