Baldwin-Southwark Corp. v. Coe

133 F.2d 359, 76 U.S. App. D.C. 412, 55 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 398, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 2506
CourtCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
DecidedNovember 30, 1942
DocketNo. 7821
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 133 F.2d 359 (Baldwin-Southwark Corp. v. Coe) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Baldwin-Southwark Corp. v. Coe, 133 F.2d 359, 76 U.S. App. D.C. 412, 55 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 398, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 2506 (D.C. Cir. 1942).

Opinion

STEPHENS, Associate Justice:

This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court of the United States for the District of Columbia dismissing a suit brought under Rev.Stat. § 4915 (1875), 35 U.S.C.A. § 63, by the Baldwin-Southwark Corporation and Robert F. Blanks, appellants, for an order authorizing the Commissioner of Patents, appellee, to issue a patent on claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 19, 20, 22 and 23 of an application for a patent filed by Blanks on October 11, 1932, and assigned by him to the Baldwin-Southwark Corporation on October 26, 1932.

The Blanks application discloses a materials testing machine so constructed that a test load may be applied to a material specimen at a predetermined rate of load change. The apparatus is described in terms of its use with an hydraulic testing machine, although Blanks states that it can be used also with a mechanical testing machine. Claims 1, 6 and 23, which are representative, read as follows:

1. An apparatus for determining a predetermined rate of load change applied to a test specimen in a materials testing machine comprising, in combination, a plurality of indicating members adapted to have similar paths of movement in relatively close relation for purposes of common visible comparison, means for driving one of said indicating members at a predetermined rate of speed, and means whereby the other member is adapted to be driven in response to the test load, whereby the relative positions of said members may be used to determine the rate applying load to the specimen.

6. An apparatus for determining a predetermined rate of load change applied to a test specimen in a materials testing machine comprising, in combination, a stress indicating hand, an auxiliary hand, means rotatably supporting said hands in superimposed axial relation, means for driving one of said indicating [360]*360members at a predetermined rate of speed, and means whereby the other member is adapted to be driven in response to the test load, whereby the relative positions of said members may be used to determine the rate of applying load to the specimen.

23. The combination in an apparatus for effecting a predetermined rate of load change applied to a test specimen in a materials testing machine having opposed specimen-engaging elements one of which is moved to apjdy load to the specimen; comprising, a rate of load member movable at the precise predetermined rate of speed at which it is desired to apply load progressively to a specimen at each instant during a test irrespective of deformation characteristics of the specimen, means for continuously driving said member at said speed, a load indicating member movable in accordance with the actual load applied to the specimen and movable adjacent to said rate of load member in visible register therewith so long as load is actually applied to the specimen at said predetermined rate, means for actuating said load indicating member solely in accordance with the load force applied to the specimen, and adjustable means for controlling the application of load to the movable specimen engaging element of the testing machine whereby the operator may control the application of load force to the specimen and simultaneously observe whether said register relation is being maintained.

Blanks' apparatus and the operation thereof can best be understood in terms of the following drawings selected from his application:

Figure 1 is a diagrammatic view of an hydraulic testing machine in which a test specimen has been placed. The specimen 1 is shown placed between the two opposed cross-heads 2e and 2d. One of these is moved by hydraulic pressure supplied from pressure pump 2a to a main loading cylinder 2b, which contains a piston or ram. A manually operable valve 2g is disposed in the pipe which carries the fluid from the pressure pump 2a to the main loading cylinder 2b. By this valve the load applied to the specimen is controlled. Figure 2 shows the front elevation of the combina-

tion of members which comprise the apparatus, to be used in connection with the testing machine, for which Blanks claims a right to patent. The relation of this apparatus to the testing machine itself can be seen in Figure 1 just above the control valve 2g. In Figure 2 hand 3 — the stress indicating hand of the claims — moves clockwise across the graduations of the dial in response to the load applied, through the manually operable valve 2g, to the specimen 1 by the testing machine. The movement of this hand thus affords, in connection with the graduations on the dial, a visual indication of the load applied or being applied to the specimen. The hand marked 13 — the auxiliary or rate of load hand of the claims, hereafter referred to for convenience as the pacer hand — is, by means independent of that which carries the stress indicating hand 3, carried in superimposed and visual relation with the [361]*361latter, and is capable of being caused, by means of an adjustable driving mechanism, to cross in clockwise direction each of the graduations on the dial at a predetermined rate of speed commensurable with the rate of change at which each unit of a load, represented by the graduations on the dial, is desired to be applied to the specimen. The upper part of Figure 3 shows a vertical

cross-section of the apparatus which is seen in front elevation in Figure 2. It discloses that the two hands, 13 and 3, although separately carried, are set upon the same axis.

In using an hydraulic testing machine equipped with the Blanks apparatus the pacer hand 13 is so regulated, by means of a watt hour meter shown as 19 in the lower part of Figure 3, that it will cross the load indicating graduations of the dial at a rate of speed commensurable with the desired rate of load change. Through manual operation of valve 2g, hand 3, the load registering hand, is caused to move across the graduations of the dial in register, i.e., coincidentally, with pacer hand 13, with the result that the load is applied to the specimen at the desired predetermined rate of change. For example, if it is desired to apply a 20,000 pound load in five minutes, pacer hand 13 is set so that it will cover the first two graduations on the dial in that period of time, and then load hand 3 is caused, by application of the load through manually operable valve 2g, to keep pace with hand 13, so that when both have reached the 20,000 mark in five minutes time the load will have been applied to the full extent of 20,000 pounds during that time. Also the pacer hand may be set so as to reflect predetermined variations in the time within which a given load will be applied, and the load hand, through manual operation of valve 2g, caused to keep pace with the pacer hand in these variations.

The Commissioner contends and the trial court found that Blanks’ apparatus is not inventive in view of the disclosures of a trade circular alleged to have been published and distributed in Europe by Ernst Krause & Company of Vienna, Austria, more than two years prior to the date of Blanks’ application. The Commissioner’s contention is predicated upon Rev.Stat. § 4886 (1875), 35 U.S.C.A. § 31 (1934), which, as it stood amended at that date, is set out in the margin,1 and upon conclu[362]*362sions which the Commissioner asserts plainly follow from examination of Illustration-1 of the Krause circular in the light of certain passages of the text thereof. The illustration and text passages 2 upon which the Commissioner relies are set out below:

ERNST KRAUSE & CO. A.-G.

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133 F.2d 359, 76 U.S. App. D.C. 412, 55 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 398, 1942 U.S. App. LEXIS 2506, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/baldwin-southwark-corp-v-coe-cadc-1942.