Material or article handling

SECTION I - CLASS DEFINITION

Apparatus, device, implement or method for placing or displacing particular articles in a particular manner or with reference to a particular support, for loading or unloading vehicles with materials or objects in general, charging or discharging furnaces, bins, chambers, or other receptacles, stacking or piling articles or materials, also combinations of general types of carriers or forwarding mechanisms, which types, per se, are separately classified elsewhere, and general types of elevators, cranes, or hoists when associated with special means for handling the load to place it on the carrier or remove it therefrom.

(1) Note. The miscellaneous subclass of this class is designed to receive any material-moving mechanism for which no place has been established elsewhere.

(2) Note. The term "handling" in the title is intended to indicate in a general way those more or less complex and intricate movements, imparted to matter by instruments or mechanisms which are deemed analogous to nonshaping manipulations, or the varying movements imparted to matter or objects by hand.

(3) Note. Treatment of matter to change its shape or condition is not included in this class. As fabricating and material-conditioning apparatus have commonly associated with them means for bringing the material to the shaping or conditioning instrumentalities or carrying it therefrom, combinations of handling or conveying means with fabricating, shaping, or conditioning means are classified on the basis of the latter.

(4) Note. Earthworking in general effects a change in the shape or form of matter and is classified on that basis; but the removing of earth by power scoops, shovels, and the like, which operate in the same manner whether removing a pile of loose coal or grain or the loose earth from an excavation, are classified on the basis of handling in this or other material-moving or transportation classes. Otherwise stated, those inventions relating to the excavating art, including power scoops, shovels or the like in which movement is imparted to such scoops or shovels subsequent to or in addition to those movements deemed necessary to complete an excavating operation, which additional movement is usually for transporting the excavated material to a disposal point, are considered to include such handling of the excavated material as will provide a basis for classification in this class (414). Even the teeth of scoops, commonly placed there for excavating hard earth, may be broadly claimed in combination with a handling-machine otherwise falling into this class without excluding the patent from this class, although the specific teeth if claimed particularly, would go to a class of excavating or earthworking.

(5) Note. The separation of mixed solid materials by an operation depending on differences of size, form, mass, or other physical properties of the mixed materials or objects is deemed to be a highly special form of moving or handling materials, and the classes of separating are deemed superior to this class.

(6) Note. Regarding land or water vehicles supporting other load-handling devices, the vehicle is deemed to be a mechanism unless the handling mechanism is so combined with and related to the vehicle as to load or unload that vehicle or handle its load or cargo.

(7) Note. For a thorough search in material-handling, all subclasses found in the index indicating by title a fabrication or material-treating class, with feeding, conveying, or other handling means, should be inspected.