Aluminum Co. v. Sterling Products Corp.

66 F.2d 958, 18 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 159, 1933 U.S. App. LEXIS 2828
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedJuly 18, 1933
DocketNo. 9538
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 66 F.2d 958 (Aluminum Co. v. Sterling Products Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Aluminum Co. v. Sterling Products Corp., 66 F.2d 958, 18 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 159, 1933 U.S. App. LEXIS 2828 (8th Cir. 1933).

Opinions

VAN VALKENBURGH, Circuit Judge.

This suit involves five patents numbered and described as follows:

Letters patent No. 1,296,588 to J. H. Bamberg, Inventor, for “Metal Mold”; letters patent No. 1,296,589 to J. H. Bamberg, for “Casting and process of making same”; letters patent No. 3,296,500 to J. H. Bamberg, for “Metal Mold”; letters patent No. 3,296,591 to J. H. Bamberg, for “Piston Casting”; letters patent No. 3,296,595 to A. B. Norton, for “Process of making Castings.” Of these patents Nos. 3,296,588 and 1,296,500 are machine patents; No. 1,296,591 is a product patent; No. 3,296,595 is a process patent; and No. 1,296,589 is for both process and product. These letters aggregate 129 claims, of which 28 are here involved; in No. 1,296,588, claims 1, 4, 40, 41, 50, 51, 53, 57, 02, and 08; in No. 1,296,589, claims 2, 3, 9, 34, 16, 19, 21, 23, and 24; in No, 1,296,590, claims 9, 10, and 14; in No. 3,296,591, all of the four claims; in No. 1,296,595, claims 14 and 15. All of these patents were issued on the same date, to wit, March 4, 1919. Appellant herein, plaintiff below, alleges infringement, and prays injunction, accounting and damages. Appellee, defendant below, charged with using and selling apparatus, methods, articles, and materials, alleged to embody the improvements said to be described in the aforesaid letters patent, operates, with certain modifications as to number of cores and method of operation, not hero deemed controlling, under the provisions of its own Plamma.ng & Bowser patent, No. 1,551,193, issued August 25,1925. The title of the last-named patent is “Method and Apparatus for Casting Trunk Pistons.” The invention “relates to piston molds used for die casting pistons of aluminum and similar metals and alloys.” The specification emphasizes the importance of facilitating handling of the various parts of the mold, reducing manual operation, and the time consumed in making a easting to a minimum. The main defenses urged are a denial of infringement and of the validity of the patents in suit.

The trial judg'e is recognized as one with especial qualifications and learning where the complex technical questions and scientific principles here present are involved, and his finding’s upon the subject-matter of the litigation are entitled to great respect.

The patents in suit all deal with the fairly simple and well-known subject of a metal hand mold for the making of aluminum alloy pistons for internal combustion engines. As the trial judge says,1 “the confusing and un necessary verbosity and prolixity of the patents, the wide range of defenses, the size of the record, and the length of the briefs have rendered the case unnecessarily difficult and confusing.” He therefore proceeds to clarify the situation by express findings, substantially as follows:

(a) Alloys of aluminum-copper-magnesium and iron are old in the art of metallurgy.

(b) The split skirt of the piston (emphasized by appellant) is not claimed.

(c) Prior to this invention in 1913, there existed an aluminum-copper-magnesium piston molded in a permanent mold.

(e) Each patent has a three-piece corn except No. 1,296,588, which has a five-piece core. The accused device has a three-piece core; formerly a five-piece core — now abandoned.

(£) The nature of the alleged improvements is usually stated generally as relating to metal molds — not limited to aluminum alloy pistons.

(g) The modus' operandi is then described as follows:

“The outer shell of these molds consist of two parts or halves, slidably mounted on a base, so that manually these two halves of the mold shells may bo brought into close con - tact and latched during operation. These outer shells in their interiors conform, of course, to the outside configuration of an ordinary piston for gasoline engines, save that the piston-ring troughs do not appear, but are afterwards, oA turning up the piston, to bo chamfered in.

“The cores of the patents in suit (except in Patent 1,296,588) are three-piece cores. Two of these core parts on their external sides conform to the interior of an ordinary piston for an ordinary internal combustion engine, and have openings to engage inserti - ble pins, which go through the outer shells to form seats for the wrist-pin of the gasoline engine for the purpose of making the crankshaft connections. These two core parts are also machined to form bosses or inner trunnions to strengthen the wrist-pin seats. Between the two core parts above described there is a third core part which fits between the two first-mentioned and closely engages therewith. Attached to one of the outer shells of the mold there is a gate of unusual and peculiar construction. This gato is illus[960]*960trated as having a mouth (into which, of course, the molten metal is poured), which is large and flaring. Below this flare there is a goose-neck, forming a trap. When this trap is filled the molten metal must flow over a riser and enter the mold through an opening thereinto which is practically the whole perpendicular height of the inner mold, or, in other words, practically of the height of the piston to be molded.

“This gate is the peculiar improvement of Norton, according to the patents in suit, though it was shown in all of the five patents in suit, including, of course, the four Bamberg patents.

“In the patent which claims the five-piece core the only difference is brought about, practically, by splitting each of the two sidepieces of the three-pieee core along the center lines thereof, so that the.four core parts thus may be disengaged from the inner trunnions or wrist-pin bosses by a turning or wiggling movement instead of a straight-forward movement toward the center of the core after the central piece of the core has been -withdrawn.

“In operation the three (or five-part core) is assembled; the two shell parts of the mold are. brought in contact by handles provided for that purpose and according to old practice. The shell parts are then latched and the molten metal is rather swiftly poured into the mold, keeping the flaring mouth of the mold filled as it sinks in the shrinkage of crystallization. After waiting until the visible metal in the gate has slightly frozen, the central part of the core is withdrawn manually, the side-pieces are removed manually and the shell parts of the mold are slid ‘apart, leaving the piston on the base.”

(h) The patents in suit mold the piston head down; the skirt being poured last. Appellee molds the skirt down and first and the piston head up, and, so, last.

(i) The accused device may be called a molding machine. It is operated hydraulically — the patented device is operated manually. The former is based upon Flammang & Bowser patent, No. 1,551,193, issued August 25,1925,- except that the latter has a five-piece core.

(j) The chief constituents of the mechanical patents are: (1) Two mold shells; (2) means of contacting and withdrawing contact to form a mold; (3) the core and .its formation; and (4) “the gate which plaintiff’s predecessor and it, experimenters found and decided to be the most important constituent, which, being right and rightly positioned, meant success, but which, being wrong, spelled defeat.”

(k) The gate of the accused device, differing from that of the patents, described above, is the ancient bullet-mold gate, having a large mouth for excess metal to account for the shrinkage of crystallization, through which gate the metal descends by gravity, with no gooseneck forming a trap.

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Bluebook (online)
66 F.2d 958, 18 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 159, 1933 U.S. App. LEXIS 2828, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/aluminum-co-v-sterling-products-corp-ca8-1933.