6S4 
The tropical agriculturist. 
[March i, 1892. 
THE TEA ROLLER PATENT CASE. 
( CoiiHnwd from paife 601.) 
Withers and Wendt appeared for the plaintiff 
(Mr, Win. Jackson) and Messrs. lirowne and Dornhorst 
i^the defendant (Messrs. A. Brown and the Coninior- 
ciol Company), whonthe case was before the Court on 
17th pec. last Mr. Jackson underwent his examination 
in chief, and today he was chiefly cross-examined. As 
on the previons occasion there were a number of models 
of tea machines were on the table in front|of the bench. 
At 2 o’clock, at which hour it had been arranged that 
the case should come on, only Mr. Withers and his 
client wore present, and a conversation took place 
between the Judge and theformoras to whether the 
case would bo continued tomorrow and the next day. 
At a later stage it was understood that the case 
would be taken up tomorrow afternoon and Saturday. 
Mr. Jac'Kbok examined by Mr. Withers said 
Before I invented this improved arrangement 
for transmitting motion I had seen nothing 
like it in ;any tea machinery in or out 
of Ceylon, nor oven read of it. I keep a re- 
cord of all patents taken out for tea machi- 
nery j and I searched amongst these, and none 
of them disclosed this arrangement or any 
thing that could be called its equivalent. I 
now look at the defendant’s machine — Brown’s 
triple action tea roller— and I point out that the 
lower tolling surface of that machine answers to 
the simarc lower rolling surface of my luacliine 
(the Excelsor). The cylindrical drum or caso 
of Brown’s machine corresponds to the squaie 
case of the Excelsior. The cylindrical 
top rolling surface of the triple action machine 
MiBWora to the square rolling surface of tho Excelsior. 
The plain spindle of the triple action roller aiiswera 
to the spindle of the Excelsior roller, which is 
screw cut. The bracket of the triple action roller 
answers to the bracket in tho Excelsior in so far 
as it controls tho central spindle and keeps it in 
yertical position and through which pressure is 
applied to tho top surface. The manner in which 
the dofondant'a machine and mine is fed is 
identical. The loaf in tlio triple action roller 
Is paaaed in through a hopper attached to the 
jacket or cylindrical drum which corresponds to 
the hopper attached to the square jacket of the 
Excelsior. Asked about the dnving mechanism of 
the two machines he said In the triple action 
roller there is a vertical crank shaft having two 
cranks in it, tho upper one of which at- 
tached to the jacket or drum. In tho J'lxcelsior 
there is a similar vertical crank shaft, tho upper 
crank pin in which is attached to the square case 
or jacket. As an export I say that the arrange- 
ment for transmitting motion to the top rolling 
surface in the defendant’s machine through tho circular 
jacket that surrounds it is identical with the ar- 
rangement for transmitting motion to my square 
rolling surface through the square jacket that 
suwounda^ it. If tho belted arrangement of the 
defendant a machine were taken off, the two 
machines would bo identical in their action. 
(This tho witness illustrated by working the 
models.) The use of tho bolt is to give a rota- 
tory motion to the upper surface on its own axis. 
I have Boon Mr. Brown a machine worked on estates 
upcountry without tho bolt. No one in Ceylon or 
anywhere else has over questioned niy right to the 
exclusive privilege of that invention, since the date 
of tho letters patent in 1881. I qualify the statement 
I made on the previous day to the effect that since 
I had taken out tho patent for the Excelsior 1 l)ad 
sold about 800 Excelsior machines in Coylon. What 
I meant to say was that I had sold 800 imwhines 
embodying tho principle of this invention. I have sold 
about 126 of the Excelsior itself. 
Croes-exaynwfd by Mr. Browne, Mr. Jackson said 
I was apprenticed to Messrs. Hall, Russell cV Co., 
Aberdeen. Thov are marine engineers, and I am not 
aware of their naving made any tea-rollers. I loft 
jy*'Kland and went to Calcutta in the end of 
869 or 1870. I was not more than three hours 
m i^ondgn there. 
I was in Assam about two years as a planter. It 
must have been somewhere in 1872 when I left the 
Scottish Assam Company. I took out luy first patent 
for a tea-roller in 1871 or 1872, while I was still a tea- 
planter: it was nothing like any of these. I patented 
fourteen or fifteen machiuesin India.— The culmina- 
tion of your career as an inventor in India was a 
lawsuit with Kiuniond etCo.?— The beginning of my 
experience, not the culmination of it. That lawsuit 
was going on in 1877 ; when Kinmond called for two 
rules gainst us, we called for three rules against 
him. Each obtained two rules. (Mr. Browne thou 
quoted the result of that suit from vol. 1 page 75 of 
the Calcutta Law Reports, tho witness remarmng that 
the roport there was correct.) That case did not go 
to the Privy Council. — Well, Kinmond having beaten 
you in that and his specification upheld, did you 
acquire any of his patent rights or lease them ?— Yes, 
he came to and asked us to continue waking 
our machines under a license from , him. The 
Standard machine was involved in that litigation. 
Kinmond could not claim that as his patent. 
Hero I must make a little explanation. Kinmond 
was the original inventor of a tea-roiling machine 
in India. Jloth Kinmond and myself were novices 
at taking out patents. Kiumond’s first invention was 
held to bo a eonibiiiation patent for a machine. 
The four subsequent patents— two by Mr, Kinmond 
and two by myself — were repealed by the Court on 
the ground that they claimed to be patents for new 
machines and not improvements on machines. Kin- 
moud’s first invention— made 1 think in 1865— con- 
sisted of a lower table or surface with a smaller 
surface superposed al)ove it, this upper or smaller 
surface being enclosed in a sort of loose case or 
jacket. The Standard roller was held to infringe that 
invention for a machine on tlie ground that it had a 
lower rolling surface with a smaller one above it, 
enclosed by a loose case or jacket. The effect of 
tho litigation was that I could not have continued 
to manufacture the Standard except under Kinmond’a 
license for eighteen months. Only one of these 
Standards came to Ceylon. The profit went to 
Kinmond, I am sorry to say, and I want to get 
that money from him. 1 saw that Standard machine 
last Friday on Loolecondura estate, and I produce the 
name-plate which is inscribed “Jackson’s tea-rolling 
machine, No. 887, maiuihu'tiired under Kinmond’a 
ntitont by Marshall, Sons i*' Co., Ltd., Gainsborough, 
England.” Tho brass plate which was on the model 
of lliG Btandiu-d machine on Loolecondura estate, 
exhibited last conrt-dav, bore “Jackson's tea-rolling 
machine, manufacturea under patent il4.” I took the 
name-plate off the Loolecondra estate Standard, because 
the machine was in dispute. I bad heard that Mr. 
Alfred Brown had been tliere with liis brother and 
photographed the machine. In Kinmond’s original 
inacliino tlie lower talilo was raised up by chains 
and weights at the four corners. — And that is the 
principle adopted by yon in the Standard ?— In so far as 
thol lower table in niy machine was moved up and 
down. Kinmond’s first machine had also a loose 
jacket and an upper rolling surface driven 
direct by cranlcs. Tno originality of niy machine 
lay here. Before tho Standard no machine 
had a trap-door for the discharge of the loaf, and 
there was no machine by which the bevel-wheels 
could bo altered in proiKirtionate size. (Mr. Witliera 
here interposed a remark to the effect that they 
were trying the Indian case over again, and Mr. Browne 
retorted that he was testing Mr. Jackson as he was 
entitled to do and would do in every way he could.) 
The leaf w'as discharged through tlie bottom rolling 
surface by means of a trap-door. That arrangement 
was my invention and it was not in Kinmond’s 
macJiine. In the Standard machine a feeding plat- 
form was put on the top through which the leaf 
could be inserted between the two rolling surfaces. 
That arrangement was not in Kinmond’s machine. 
Kinmond had no elastic pressure on the undersur- 
face of his rolling table beyond what was given by 
the weights, and I put springs under my lower table. 
Kinmond's machine w’as fed by lifting up the jacket 
and pushing the leaf underneath. Before tho Htan- 
dard there was no roiling machine which had two 
