Babson Bros. v. Chore-Boy Manufacturing Co.

188 F. Supp. 20, 1960 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4882
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Indiana
DecidedAugust 30, 1960
DocketNo. IP 57-C-286
StatusPublished

This text of 188 F. Supp. 20 (Babson Bros. v. Chore-Boy Manufacturing Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Babson Bros. v. Chore-Boy Manufacturing Co., 188 F. Supp. 20, 1960 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4882 (S.D. Ind. 1960).

Opinion

STECKLER, Chief Judge.

Findings of Fact

1. Plaintiff Babson Bros. Co. is a corporation organized and existing under the laws of the State of Illinois, and has its principal place of business at Chicago, Illinois. Defendant Chore-Boy Manufacturing Co., Inc. is an Indiana corporation and has its principal place of business at Cambridge City, Indiana.

2. This is an action for damages and an injunction against defendant for alleged infringement of U. S. Patent No. 2,793,612, issued May 28, 1957, of which plaintiff is the owner, on an application of Henry B. Babson, filed February 17, 1955.

3. Claims 2 and 3 have been placed in suit. The preambles of these claims set out an environment of a milking apparatus and an evacuated milk carry-away pipeline. These two elements— milking apparatus and evacuated pipeline are admittedly old in the prior art. The patentable invention is alleged to exist in a milk receiver combination with an upper inlet and an outlet and a supporting means permitting tipping of the [21]*21receiver. Claims 2 and 3 differ primarily in that Claim 2 specifies “pivotal mounting means supporting said chamber means for rotational movement” and “the outlet being above the normal level of milk in said chamber” when the chamber is receiving milk from the milking apparatus, while Claim 3 defines the mounting means as “means supporting said chamber means for movement between a first position in which milk from said animal collects in the chamber.”; “both the inlet and outlet being ■on the top thereof when in said first position”; “and a second position in which the milk empties from the chamber through said outlet, the outlet being substantially at the bottom thereof when in said second position.” It is self-evident that the milk chamber would have to operate in that manner for tipping the chamber to empty it.

4. The Claims 2 and 3 disclose nothing more than the milk pail of the Mc-•Cornack Patent No. 1,859,213, issued in 1932, Figs. 1 and 4, as an intermediate milk chamber 6, referred to by plaintiff as a conventional bucket, with the bail '7 roclcably supporting the bucket 6 for rotary movement, and pail milk inlets 12, Fig. 5 operably connected with the cow through the tubes 19 receiving milk through the lid 11 on the pail. Babson ■changed the outlet from over the rim ■of the bucket 6 upon lifting the lid, to •a tubular outlet fixed to the lid. That is the only modification to be added to an ■otherwise complete anticipation by the McCornack patent disclosure. This inlet and separate outlet through the top of a liquid receiving chamber is found to be quite old in Defendant’s Exhibits E, I and J and the Beehler patent •470,776, Exhibit L. None of the ele.ments of Babson’s Claims 2 and 3 perform any additional or different function in the combination than they perform ■out of it.

5. The Babson patent states that “it is a principal object of the present invention to provide an intermediate milk receiving chamber for a carry-away milking system which may be used to collect and measure the output of individual cows and which utilizes no complicated mechanical valves.” No valve is included in Claims 2 and 3, but the patent discloses a valve 18 in the hose line between the chamber outlet and the carry-away pipeline.

6. Milk measuring chambers have been shown in the prior art to be “intermediate milk receivers” with valves between the receivers and the carry-away pipeline.

7. Plaintiff’s witness Mollman testified at length on the need for sanitation in milk pipeline systems emphasizing the desirability of eliminating valves in the milk stream. Defendant agrees that sanitation is highly desirable.

8. Defendant’s witness Reisner testified without contradiction that prior to 1913, he milked cows at the University of Illinois, where he milked into a pail having a supporting bail, took the pail of milk to a scale to weigh the milk, then carried the pail of milk to a carry-away milk pipeline, lifted the pail by its bail, tilted the pail on the bail and poured the milk into the pipeline down which the milk flowed to a milk room. The pail had a common inlet and outlet opening at the top, and the pipeline was not evacuated to a low pressure other than that induced by the flow of milk by gravitation.

9. Defendant’s Exhibit E, a chemist’s wash bottle at least as old as 1917, has separate inlet and outlet openings, both openings being uppermost in filling, and the outlet opening at a lowermost position when the bottle is tilted to empty it, tilting being done by hand.

10. Defendant’s gasoline can, Exhibit J, admittedly as old as in 1942, is a 2y2 gallon measure, supported by a bail and has an inlet separate from the hose outlet. This can obviously may be directly substituted without change for the patent intermediate receiver to have the can inlet “operably” connected to the milking apparatus, and the can outlet “operably” connected to the evacuated milk earry-away milk pipeline, with the can bail en[22]*22gaged over a weighing scale, without use of a valve. Defendant’s Exhibit H illustrates an acid carboy admittedly disclosed as early 'as 1952 — wherein acid is flowed into an upright bottle or flask rotatably supported, flowed out by tipping the bottle. Acid is commonly used by dairies in testing milk for butterfat.

11. The patent to Beehler, Exhibit L, issued March 15, 1892, shows a can similar to that of Defendant’s Exhibit J, having a bail to permit rotational movement of the can from a filling to an emptying position, and as having an inlet and an outlet, both above the normal level of the liquid in the can before tilting the can. There is a hose operably connected to the outlet.

12. Defendant, as early as 1946, employed a drum Exhibit B rotatably mounted to be filled through an upper opening in a first position and to be emptied through that opening when the drum was rotated one hundred eighty degrees.

13. The prior art patents Nos. 1,846,-855; 1,910,830; 2,037,467; and others show it has been old prior to Babson’s filing date to use hoses to operably interconnect devices for desired flows of milk.

14. The Groff patent 967,513 of 1910, shows a rotationally mounted bucket serving as an intermediate milk receiver between a cow and a milk carry-away vessel.

15. The Daysh patent 1,548,437 of 1925, shows an automatic milk measuring device wherein milk comes from a cow in a flow induced by vacuum and pours into an intermediate milk receiving bucket. When the bucket fills to a predetermined level, the bucket tips over and empties into an evacuated chamber as the equivalent of a milk carry-away pipeline.

16. The British patent 650,897 of 1951, Exhibit L, entitled “Improvements in Milk Tipping and Weighing Apparatus,” states that the structure is not limited to handling milk, but “may be used also for liquids other-than milk.” Plaintiff’s witness Hood' explained the disclosure of - this patent as' having, as in the Babson patent, a chamber receiving milk; the chamber being rockably suspended from a scale for weighing with the chamber inlet uppermost when filling and lowermost when emptying; and the patentee states he eliminates the use of a valve as theretofore used. The inlet, and outlet are in common, without .a. valve.

17. The Babson patent structure of' Claims 2 and 3 and Defendant’s Exhibits B, D, E, H, J, and the Beehler patent 470,776 Exhibit L, are in analogous art-— the art of handling, measuring and transporting of liquids, wherein the devices, of the art function in common.

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Bluebook (online)
188 F. Supp. 20, 1960 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 4882, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/babson-bros-v-chore-boy-manufacturing-co-insd-1960.