This was an action at law brought by Henry W. Rice against John L. Heald to recover damages for an alleged infringement of reissued letters-patent No. 6422, granted May 4, 1875, to him for improvements in steam-boilers. The original patent was No. 146,614, dated Jan. 20, 1874. The invention, as stated in the complaint, consisted, among other things, of a combination of a straw-feeding attachment with the furnace-door of a return-flue steam-boiler, for the use of straw alone as fuel, in generating steam ample for practically operating steam-engines.
The case was tried by a jury, and resulted in a verdict and a judgment for the plaintiff; to reverse which this writ of error is prosecuted.
A bill of exceptions sets out the exceptions of the defendant to the rulings of the court below, and all the evidence. The court was asked at the close of the plaintiff's testimony, and again when all the evidence on both sides had been introduced, to instruct the jury to return a verdict for the defendant; the refusal to do which, amongst other rulings, is assigned for error; and thus the whole case on the merits is brought here for review, so far as they rest upon questions of law.
The plaintiff introduced in evidence his original and reissued patents. For the purpose of comparison,-which, in view of the questions of law raised becomes important and necessary,-the specifications and claims are exhibited here in parallel columns, using one copy for both patents when they are identical, and putting all the language that is in the original and not in the reissued patent in the left-hand column in italics, and putting in the right-hand column, in italics, all the language used in the reissued patent that is not in the original.
'Supecifications forming part of letters-patent No. 146,614, dated Jan. 20, 1874.
Reissue, No. 6422 dated May 4, 1875.
application filed
November 3, 1873,
March 17, 1875.
'To all whom it may concern:
'Be it known that I, Harvey Wood Rice, Of Haywood, Alameda County, State of California, have invented new and useful improvements in steam-boilers; and I do hereby declare the following description and accompanying drawing are sufficient to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which it most nearly appeartains, to make and use my said invention without further invention or experiment.
'My invention relates to certain improvements in the construction of steam-boilers whereby
the combination of a straw-feeding device with the furnace door of that class of boilers which are known as return-flue boilers, by which combination I am able to provide a superior arrangement for utilizing straw as a fuel for generating steam.
Many attempts have heretofore been made, both in this country and in Europe, to successfully I am enabled to utilize straw and other light substances for fuel, so that a complete combustion of the smoke is attained, and the danger from fire in the harvest fields, where those boilers are more especially useful, is entirely
utilizes straw as a fuel for generating steam in steam boilers; but these attempts have always resulted in failures or partial failures.
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; and, unless the cinders are frequently removed from between the grate-boars, they soon accumulate to such an extent as to choke the draft entirely and prevent combustion.
Many devices have been tried and patented for overcoming these troubles; but, as far as I am aware, none of them have succeeded in remedying the difficulties sufficiently to make the straw-burning engine a practical success.
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; and
the chimney, and the straw will be burned freely, giving out a high degree of heat without danger of choking the grate-bars.
to a novel method of securing the tubes and tube-sheet within the shell of the boiler, so that they can be at any time easily removed for the purpose of cleaning or repairing, and at a much less expense than is ordinarily entailed for such work.