Bates Industries, Inc. v. Daytona Sports Co.

310 F. Supp. 311, 163 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 385, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9743
CourtDistrict Court, C.D. California
DecidedAugust 14, 1969
DocketCiv. A. No. 67-1490
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 310 F. Supp. 311 (Bates Industries, Inc. v. Daytona Sports Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, C.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bates Industries, Inc. v. Daytona Sports Co., 310 F. Supp. 311, 163 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 385, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9743 (C.D. Cal. 1969).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PARTIALLY GRANTING MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

PREGERSON, District Judge.

This is an action for patent infringement brought against defendants, Daytona Sports Co. and Daytona Products, Inc. Paulson Manufacturing Co. was permitted to intervene and be joined as a defendant. Defendants and intervenor filed this motion for summary judgment. The matter came on for hearing and was submitted to the Court for its decision. Having read all the pleadings [312]*312and papers on file and having considered the oral arguments of counsel, the Court now makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law.

This action arises out of the patent laws of the United States. Subject-matter jurisdiction is founded upon 28 U.S. C. § 1338(a).

On July 29, 1963, Walter R. Hiatt and Michael M. King filed in the United States Patent Office their applications for a utility patent and a design patent on their alleged invention entitled “Visor Helmet.” The utility patent application was defective in form and was returned. It was filed again and received an effective filing date of August 30, 1963.

The design patent for “Helmet” was issued to plaintiff, the assignee of the inventors, on April 6, 1965, as United States Design Letters Patent No. D. 200,757 [hereinafter referred to as the design patent]. The utility patent for “Visor Helmet” was issued to plaintiff, the assignee of the inventors, on June 22, 1965, as United States Letters Patent No. 3,189,918 [hereinafter referred to as the '918 patent]. Plaintiff is, and at all relevant times has been the owner of said patents. A copy of the diagram included in said patents is attached hereto as Appendix A.

Defendants contend that the patents are invalid. They assert that the ’918 patent was anticipated by, or was obvious from, an unpatented visor assembly commonly known and sold publicly more than one year prior to the application date of the ’918 patent.1 That prior art visor assembly was produced and sold by a California corporation named McHal Enterprises, Inc2 Defendants also contend that the design patent is invalid because its allegedly distinctive features are functional in nature.

'918 PATENT

The ’918 patent claims a combination consisting of three elements: (1) a standard crash helmet with three male snap fasteners rigidly mounted on the forehead portion, said helmet being old in the art,3 (2) an adapter band using snap fasteners on the helmet, the adapter band continuing around to the sides of the helmet with snap fasteners located on its ends, to which the shield is pivotally attached, and (3) a transparent plastic shield which is pivotally mounted to the adapter band so that it can be rotated up and away from the wearer’s face, but is ordinarily held in place by a stop means so that it substantially covers and protects the face of the wearer.4

[313]*313The snap fasteners on the adapter band are not rigidly mounted; two of the three snap fasteners that mount the assembly to the helmet can slide a small distance along the length of the band. This permits the adapter band to be attached easily to helmets of various sizes and shapes, wherein the distance between the three standard snap fasteners may vary to a small extent. The stop means used to lock the shield in place consists of a male element of a snap fastener which locks into a corresponding hole on the visor or shield.

In their application for what became the '918 patent, the patentees listed the following objects of their invention, which they represented to be improvements over the prior art: (1) to substitute, for the peaked sun visor that gave only partial protection, a transparent shield that substantially covers and protects the wearer’s entire face, (2) to pivotally attach the transparent shield to the helmet so that it could be flipped up and out of the way of the wearer’s face when not in use, (3) to attach the assembly to the standard crash helmet in such a way that it could be mounted and dismounted easily, (4) to provide a flip-up shield assembly that is simple and inexpensive.5

After their initial application had been denied, the patentees emphasized in their remarks to the Patent Examiner that the feature of their invention which made it particularly distinctive over the prior art was the mounting of the snap fasteners into longitudinal slots on the adapter band, which permitted the spacing of the snap fasteners to vary so that the assembly might be interchangeably mounted to different helmets.6

The operation and construction of the McHal assembly is almost identical to the ’918 patent. A graphic comparison of the McHal assembly and the ’918 patent is included herein as Appendix B.7 The McHal assembly consists of: (1) a standard crash helmet with three male snap fasteners rigidly mounted on the forehead portion, (2) a brimmed or peaked visor with snap fasteners designed to mate with the snap fasteners on the helmet, the visor continuing around to the sides of the helmet with fasteners located on its ends, to which the shield is pivotally attached, and (3) a transparent plastic shield which is pivotally mounted to the peaked visor so that it can be rotated up and away from the wearer’s face but is ordinarily held in place by a stop means to substantially cover and protect the face of the wearer.

The peaked visor in the McHal assembly attaches to the standard crash helmet in precisely the same way as the ’918 patent adaptor band attaches to the standard crash helmet: snap fasteners are mounted into longitudinal slots on [314]*314the peaked visor, permitting the spacing of the snap fasteners to vary so that the assembly might be interchangeably attached to different helmets.8 The peaked visor in the McHal assembly also continues around to the sides of the helmet, with fasteners on the ends to mount the flip-up transparent shield, as in the '918 patent.9 The stop means used in the McHal assembly is somewhat different from that of the ’918 patent; it consists of a rubber-covered metal strip rolled over onto itself to form a nodule, which is attached to the shield and engages the edge of the peaked visor to hold the shield in position over the wearer’s face.10

Thus the McHal assembly, which was not cited by the Patent Examiner in the ’918 patent, accomplishes all of the objectives that the patentees listed in the ’918 patent application. Moreover, it utilizes the same variably spaced mounting of the snap fasteners which the patentees asserted made the ’918 patent distinctive over the prior art. Defendants therefore contend that the peaked visor in the McHal assembly anticipated the adapter band in the ’918 patent.11

In opposition to this motion for summary judgment, plaintiff contends that the peaked visor of the McHal assembly is substantially different from the adapter band of the ’918 patent because the peaked visor positions the transparent shield away from the wearer’s face whereas the adapter band permits the transparent shield to be positioned close to the wearer’s face.

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310 F. Supp. 311, 163 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 385, 1969 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9743, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bates-industries-inc-v-daytona-sports-co-cacd-1969.