Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/700

 BTEOEEIDGB V. LINDSAY. 693 �The box of the Landers, Frary & Clark mill, sold by the defendants, is without the usual wooden top. "But the hop- per" (to quote the language of the defendant's expert witness, John E. Earle,) "is cast with a flange projecting from the upper edge, sufficient to cover and f orm the top of the box ; and it is that extension of the hopper, in defendant's mill, which forma the top of the box." In no other respect, it seems to me, does the Landers, Frary & Clark mill differ from the Strobridge mill, (an exhibit of thia record,) so far, at least, as concerns the first claim of the patent. �The defendants insist that the phrase "detachable hopper and grinding shell" means a hopper and shell separate and detachable from the top of the box, and that the claim is for a coiïee-mill in which the "hopper and grinding shell formed in a single piece" can be readily detaehed from the top of the box in which it is suspended ; and therefore, it is argued, the mill sold by the defendants does net contain the oombination set forth in the first claim of the patent, and there is no in- fringement oï the complainant's rights. But I am unable to adopt this view. I do not think the word "detachable," as used in this claim, necessarily implies that the hopper must possess the capacity of being detaehed from the top of the box. The object contemplated seems rather to be to have a hopper easily detachable from the box. By the terms of the claim the hopper and grinding shell formed in a single piece are "suspended within the box by the upper part of the hop- per or a flange thereon." As respects the width of the flange there is no express limitation in the specification. In the mill sold by the defendants the hopper is cast with a flange, which projects from its upper edge sufficiently to cover! and form the top of the box. This, undoubtedly, is an im-; provement upon the Strobridge mill, as the same is shown' byhis drawing, and of which Exhibit " Strobridge" of this record is a specimen. The flange of the Landers, Frary & Clark mill 1 not only sustains the hopper and grinding shell within thei box, but performs the additional function of serving as a cover of the box. But this improvement does not justify the defendants in appropriating to their use the complainant'a ����