Stanley Matthews

“ What invention could he claim? He uses Morey's device precisely as Morey's patent contemplated, and the Cornish boiler exactly as it was designed it should be used. And in the combination a ch operates separately, producing its own results. There was no inventive resource drawn upon to bring them together. Could not the owners of the patents for the straw-feeding attachment and the return-flue boiler unite their machines and work them together, in defiance of a claim for the combination? To ask the question is to answer it. ”

“ And if it is for the straw-feeding attachment as an independent device, but to be used in boilers for generating steam, when straw is to be used as fuel, then the application of it to the return-flue boilers, although these were not actually known to the inventor, is merely a new and analogous use of an old device, operating in the very manner intended by its inventor, and the use of which, in the new application, involved no invention, and could not therefore be the subject of a patent. ”

“ My experiments however, have developed the fact that, by attaching a tube or box-door to the furnaces of that class of boilers, known as return-flue boilers, in which the chimney or stack is constructed directly above the furnace, and the heat and products of combustion from the furnace are carried along under the boiler and then returned back to the stack through flues or tubes leading through the length of the boiler, the combustion will be so complete that no sparks, and but very little smoke, will escape from obviated ”

“ When straw is fed into the furnace of an ordinary steam boiler, it burns too quickly to do much good in heating the water in the boiler, until a sufficient quantity of cinders accumulates upon the grate-bars to impede the draft ”

“ There is certainly no suggestion that it is considered important much less necessary in supplying this fuel, to do it in such manner and by means of such device as will prevent the introduction of a draft of cold air between the top of the fuel and the bottom of the boiler, while in the act of replenishing the supply. Neither the mode of feeding the fuel, nor any device for doing it, is made any part of the described invention ”

“ The following is a statement in the language of counsel for the defendant in error, of what he claims to be the proof, on the trial of the cause, as contained in the bill of exceptions, showing the state of the art and the history of the inventions attributed to Morey and Rice respectively:--
'For many years before the invention threshing machines had been driven by steam as a motive-power. In generating steam, portable fire-box boilers had been used. ”

“ The court below, in its rulings upon objections to the introduction of the reissued patent of Rice, in its refusals to charge the jury as requested by the defendant, and in its charge as given, took views of the validity of the patent, on which the case of the plaintiff rested, which are opposed to those expressed in this opinion, and which necessarily resulted in the verdict and judgment against the defendant. ”

“ In California, in most grain districts, wood and coal were very expensive, and were inconvenient on account of having to be transported to the harvest fields, and from place to place in the fields as the threshing machine was moved from one spot to another, as one section of the field was threshed and another about to be commenced. ”

“ That application of it is within the scope and provision of Morey's invention, whether it had been tested by his experience, or was anticipated by his foresight or not. If, at the date of Morey's invention, return-flue boilers had not been known, but had been subsequently invented, his patent, as applied to them, would still have prevailed against any new claimant; for the new application does not produce any new effect. It is only the occasion which is new ”

“ It caused the heat and flame of the fire to pass twice through the length of the boiler, while in the others the heat and flame passed but once through the length of the boiler.
* * * * *
'It is to be noticed that the Morey patents describe and claim only the combination of the straw-feeding device with the furnace of a boiler. His patents stop at the furnace-door. They do not go into the boiler beyond the furnace. ”

“ It may afford evidence of judgment and skill in the selection and adaptation of the materials in the manufacture of the instrument for the purposes intended, but nothing more.' Hicks v. Kelsey (18 Wall. 670) affirms this case. ”