UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

BUSSEY V. EXCELSIOR MFG. CO., 110 U. S. 131 (1884)

110 U. S. 131

U.S. Supreme Court

Bussey v. Excelsior Mfg. Co., 110 U.S. 131 (1884)

Bussey v. Excelsior Manufacturing Company

Argued January 8, 1884

Decided January 21, 1884

110 U.S. 131

Syllabus

The first four claims of reissued letters patent No. 3,815, granted to Esek Bussey and Charles A. McLeod, February 1, 1870, for a "cooking stove," the original patent, No. 56,688, having been granted to said Bussey, as inventor, July 24, 1868, and reissued to him, as No. 3,649, September 28, 1889, namely:

"1. A diving flue cooking stove with the exit flue so constructed as to enclose on the sides and bottom the culinary boiler or hot water reservoir B;"

"2. A diving flue cooking stove with the exit flue constructed across the bottom and up the rear upright side of the culinary boiler or hot water reservoir B;"

"3. A diving flue cooking stove constructed with an exit passage F below the top of the oven and an exit flue E E' in combination with an untried reservoir B attached to the rear of the stove and placed just above such exit passage, and so arranged that the gases of combustion, in passing through such exit flue, will impinge upon or come in direct contact with said reservoir, substantially as and for the purposes hereinbefore specified;"

"4. An exit passage F constructed in the rear of a diving flue cooking stove and below the top of the oven, in combination with an uncased reservoir B attached to the rear of the stove, the bottom of which reservoir is also below the top of the oven and so arranged that the gases of combustion will come in contact with and heat such reservoir by a direct draft from the fire box to the smoke pipe"

are limited to a structure in which the front of the reservoir has no air space in front of it, and in which the exit flue does not expand into a chamber at the bottom of the reservoir, and in which the vertical part of the exit flue does not pass up through the reservoir.

Hence those claims are not infringed by a stove in which, although there are three flues, and an exit passage below the top of the oven, and a reservoir the bottom of which is below the top of the oven, no part of the rear end vertical plate is removed so as to allow the gases of combustion to come into direct contact with the front of the reservoir, nor is any such plate employed as the plate w w of the patent, but there is a dead air space between the rear plate of the flue and the front of the reservoir, and the exit flue is not a narrow one, carried across the middle of the bottom of the clubjuris

Page 110 U. S. 132

reservoir, as in the patent, but the products of combustion, on leaving the flue space, pass into a chamber beneath the reservoir, the area of which is coextensive with the entire surface of the bottom of the reservoir, and the vertical passage out of such chamber is not one outside of the rear of the reservoir, but is one in and through the body of the reservoir, and removable with it.

The claim of letters patent No. 142,933, granted to David A. Nation and Ezekiel C. Little as inventors, September 16, 1873, for an "improvement in reservoir cooking stoves," namely,

"1. The combination, with the back plate I of the cooking stove A, of the reservoir C, arranged on a support about midway between the top and bottom plates of the stove, and the air chamber b between the stove back and reservoir front, open at the top, and communicating with the air in the room, substantially as and for the purposes set forth;"

"2. The combination, with the stove A and reservoir, C, of the small opening a, the sheet flue G under the entire bottom of the reservoir, and the small exit passage or pipe E, all substantially as and for the purposes herein set forth,"

are void for want of novelty.

The claims of letters patent No. 142,934, granted to said Nation and Little, September 16, 1873, for an " improvement in reservoir cooking stoves," namely,

"1. The detachable base pan or flue shell D, attached to the body at a point near the center of the back plate of the stove, by means of hooks a a cast on the base pan, and pins b b on the stove body, substantially for the purposes herein set forth;"

"2. The portable reservoir F, with the flue E in the rear side, in combination with the portable base pan or flue shell D, substantially as and for the purposes herein set forth;"

"3. The combination, with a three flue stove having damper A arranged as described, of the portable base pan or flue shell D and warming closet G, all substantially as and for the purposes herein set forth,"

are void for want of novelty.

There was no invention, in claim 1, in using, to attach the base pan, an old mode used in attaching other projecting parts of the stove.

Claims 2 and 3 are merely for aggregations of parts, and not for patentable combinations.


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