Bartelt Engineering Co. v. Pneumatic Scale Corp.

298 F. Supp. 649, 162 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 48, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13246
CourtDistrict Court, D. Massachusetts
DecidedApril 15, 1969
DocketCiv. A. No. 66-106-J
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 298 F. Supp. 649 (Bartelt Engineering Co. v. Pneumatic Scale Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Massachusetts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bartelt Engineering Co. v. Pneumatic Scale Corp., 298 F. Supp. 649, 162 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 48, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13246 (D. Mass. 1969).

Opinion

OPINION

JULIAN, District Judge.

This is an action in which plaintiff, Bartelt Engineering Company, Inc., a [650]*650Delaware corporation, alleges the defendant, Pneumatic Scale Corporation, a Massachusetts corporation, has infringed claim 16 of United States Patent No. 2,649,674 entitled “Packaging Machine,” (“Bartelt patent”), issued jointly to Harold L. Bartelt and his brother, Donald E. Bartelt, on an application of Harold L. Bartelt, filed June 13, 1949.

Findings of Fact

Until February 8, 1960, plaintiff’s predecessor in business, Bartelt Engineering Company, an Illinois corporation, operated as licensee under the Bartelt patent. On February 8, 1960, plaintiff was organized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Reigel Paper Corporation, a Delaware corporation, and became the successor in business of the Illinois corporation. On the same date, the Bartelt patent was assigned to plaintiff.

The machines alleged to infringe the patent in suit were manufactured in Canada by defendant’s wholly owned subsidiary, Delamere & Williams Co., Ltd., a Canadian corporation, and were sold by defendant to General Foods Corporation. The accused machines (hereinafter also referred to as the Kool-Aid machines) were delivered to General Foods in Chicago, Illinois, and have been used to package a drink powder known as Kool-Aid.

In its complaint the plaintiff had also charged infringement against the packaging machines sold by or for the defendant to R. T. French Company and to Quaker Oats Company. At the conclusion of the trial, however, the plaintiff in open court withdrew its charges against these machines.

Subsequently, on June 15, 1967, a consent interlocutory judgment was entered in which it was adjudged:

“1. Plaintiff is the owner of said United States Patent No. 2,649,674 [the patent in suit].
2. Nothing is hereby adjudicated in respect to the validity of Plaintiff’s said patent.
3. The claims of Plaintiff’s said patent, if valid, are not infringed by the manufacture, use or sale of the machines sold to R. T. French Company and Quaker Oats Company in the form represented by Defendant as being shown in Defendant’s Exhibits AE and AF in evidence herein.
4. In respect to said French and Quaker Oats machines, the Complaint herein is dismissed with prejudice.
5. The foregoing is without prejudice to Plaintiff’s charge of infringement by other machines in issue in this action.
6. All issues relating to possible awards to Defendant of costs and attorney’s fees hereunder are reserved by the Court for future action.”

The Bartelt patent may be described in general terms as relating to a machine for making open-ended pouches or bags from a roll of flexible material, commonly known as a web, and filling the bags with a product to be packaged. The open end of the filled bag is then closed.

The web is unwound from the supply roll and drawn along a horizontal path. As the web moves along this path, it is folded longitudinally with the fold at the bottom and with the two halves of the strip upright and face to face. After folding, the two halves are sealed together at spaced intervals, that is, vertical seals are made to form a row of connected bags, and, eventually, the folded web is cut down the center of each seal to separate the bags. In order to form the seals, either the web is made of a heat-sealable thermoplastic material or the inner side of the web is coated with such a material so that the seals may be made by the application of heat and pressure. A measuring and dispensing mechanism deposits a measured amount of product in each bag. This mechanism may be any one of a number of types depending upon the particular product being packaged. Finally, the top of each [651]*651bag is closed and the bag is removed from the machine. Usually, the top is closed by a horizontal heat seal but other forms of closing, such as folding, may be used.

The patent contains 16 claims. As originally filed on June 13, 1949, the Bartelt application contained 21 claims. From that date until the issuance of the patent, more than four years later on August 25, 1953, additional claims were filed from time to time by amendments. The last such additional claim, namely, claim 31, was filed on January 16, 1953. Through cancellations and rejections the number of claims was ultimately reduced to 16. Claim 31 in the application, as amended, became claim 16 of the patent. This is the claim that the plaintiff contends has been infringed by the defendant’s accused machines. The text of claim 16 is set out in full in the margin.1

The defendant contends that claim 16 is invalid for lack of invention over prior art and for obviousness, and in any event denies infringement.

The patentee was not the first to devise a horizontal packaging machine. In fact, the prior art as exemplified by the prior art patents included in Exhibit N, and extending back to 1921, shows horizontal machines of both the continuous-motion and intermittent-motion types. A continuous-motion machine is one where the various mechanisms for folding, sealing, filling and cutting operate as the web and bags move along the horizontal path without stopping. One example of such a continuous-motion machine is defendant’s Robinson Patent No. 2,272,251, granted in 1942. Accused machines are continuous-motion machines. An intermittent-motion machine is one where the web and bags advance step by step and stop, that is, remain at “dwell,” while the various mechanisms operate on them. An example of an intermittent machine is defendant’s Howard Patent No. 2,269,533, also granted in 1942.

The stop-and-go action of the intermittent machines of necessity results in relatively slow performance and low output in contrast to the potential speed of the continuous machines such as defendant’s Kool Aid machines in which the work is moved continuously through the machine with the operations performed thereon “on the fly.”

The machine disclosed by the Bartelt patent is an intermittent-motion packaging machine which converts strip material, called the web, into a row of bags connected at their adjacent edges and intermittently advances the bags step by step edgewise along a predetermined path to bring the leading bag to a position where it is received and firmly gripped by a conveyor before it is cut off, and is then advanced to a position where it comes to a stop, and while stopped it is cut off from the succeeding bag by a cutting device. Immediately after cut-off, the conveyor separates the gripped bag from the next succeeding bag and advances it step by step, intermittently, along the predetermined path to a filling mechanism which deposits into the gripped bag the material to be packaged.

Each of the first fifteen claims of the Bartelt patent explicitly describes the forward movement of the bags as step-by-step, or intermittent. ■ The specifica[652]*652tions and drawings likewise describe a machine that is designed and intended to operate in intermittent forward movements.

For example, in column 3, lines 30 through 37 of the patent appears the following description:

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Sylvania Electric Products, Inc. v. Brainerd
369 F. Supp. 468 (D. Massachusetts, 1974)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
298 F. Supp. 649, 162 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 48, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13246, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bartelt-engineering-co-v-pneumatic-scale-corp-mad-1969.