Bereslavsky v. United States

150 F. Supp. 797, 138 Ct. Cl. 434, 113 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 342, 1957 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 74
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedMay 8, 1957
DocketNo. 48722
StatusPublished

This text of 150 F. Supp. 797 (Bereslavsky v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bereslavsky v. United States, 150 F. Supp. 797, 138 Ct. Cl. 434, 113 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 342, 1957 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 74 (cc 1957).

Opinion

WbutakeR, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

In our former opinion in this case, reported in 129 C. Cls. 427, dealing only with the question of validity, we held that the invention disclosed in claim 1 of plaintiff’s patent consisted in adding to natural gasoline an amount of mesitylene, over and above the amount normally found therein. Gasoline produced from oil wherever found, except in two places, has a certain amount of mesitylene in it. Plaintiff discovered that the addition of more mesitylene to it would prevent a gasoline engine from knocking. That was his invention.

Mesitylene is one of the aromatic hydrocarbons; xylene is another. Before Bereslavsky’s patent, Taber and Essex had discovered that the addition of xylene to gasoline would prevent knocking; but we held that this patent did not anticipate Bereslavsky’s patent, because it emphasized xylene, whereas Bereslavsky emphasized mesitylene.

Now, defendant has produced a mixture which contains some mesitylene, but no more than is normally found in [436]*436natural gasoline produced by distillation, cracking, etc., with a minor and insignificant exception, now to be stated.

To the gasoline, defendant added an aromatic mixture, called CTC, which contained aromatic hydrocarbons, most of which had antiknock properties in varying degrees, as set out in finding 20. In volume this mixture was 6.85 per cent of the total. Only 5.25 per cent of this 6.85 per cent was mesitylene. Thus, mesitylene in defendant’s product was only 0.36 per cent of the total volume. The specifications of plaintiff’s patent called for mesitylene of from 5 to 20 per cent of the total.

Thus, it appears that the presence of mesitylene in defendant’s mixture was merely incidental. The trial Commissioner, after careful analysis of defendant’s mixture and comparison of it with plaintiff’s invention, concluded: “Its amount * * * was far too small to produce the result disclosed and intended by the patent in suit.” We thoroughly agree.

We are of opinion that defendant has not infringed plaintiff’s patent. Plaintiff’s petition is accordingly dismissed.

It is so ordered.

Laramore, Judge/ MaddeN, Judge; LittletoN, Judge; and JoNes, Chief Judge, concur.

FINDINGS OF FACT

The court, having considered the evidence, the briefs and argument of counsel, and the report of Commissioner Donald E. Lane, makes findings of fact as follows:

1. This is a patent suit alleging infringement of claim 1 of United States Letters Patent No. 1,713,589, issued May 21,1929, owned by the plaintiff, and entitled “Low-Compression Fuel.” The patent in suit was before this court in 1954 on the sole issue of validity of claim 1. The court’s opinion, dated October 5,1954, held claim 1 valid by stating “that the Patent Office was correct in issuing a patent to plaintiff covering his discovery that mesitylene in addition to that naturally found in gasoline, would prevent a knock.” The patent in suit is now before the court on the sole issue of infringement of claim 1 by the defendant.

[437]*4372. Claim 1 of the patent in suit reads:

1. A low compression motor fuel, such as gasoline or kerosene, containing a compound belonging to the mesitylene group.

3. The court’s opinion on validity stated that “the claim of the patent must of necessity be construed as meaning a motor fuel to which is added an amount of mesitylene in addition to that in the gasoline produced from petroleum, both by distillation and by cracking,” and that, “In short, it means adding more mesitylene than can be obtained from the gasoline itself.” The court’s opinion held that claim 1 is ambiguous, but that when one looks to the patent specifications, “there seems to be no doubt but that the inventor had in mind the addition to the motor fuel of mesitylenes which were not naturally found in that fuel.”

4. The evidence on the infringement issue comprises a detailed stipulation with exhibits filed March 13, 1956. The plaintiff has filed printed copies of this stipulation for convenient reference. The exhibits mentioned include transcripts of depositions taken in a civil action brought by plaintiff against the Sun Oil Company in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Western Division, and also include the various reports identified therein. An earlier stipulation of facts, together with exhibits filed June 16, 1953, is also part of the evidence in this case.

5. The specific example of the alleged infringement to which the evidence presented relates is the making, by the Sun Oil Company, pursuant to directives issued by the Petroleum Administration for War, of “100/130” and “99/130” grades of aviation gasoline containing a petroleum distillate referred to in the records of the Sun Oil Company as CTC base. The letters CTC stand for catalytic thermal catalytic, and were used to designate a hydrocarbon material produced by three separate and consecutive cracking operations in which a petroleum was cracked first by a catalytic (Houdry) cracking process, second by a thermal cracking process, and third by another catalytic (Ploudry) cracking process. The accused aviation gasoline was man[438]*438ufactured to meet tbe requirements of certain specifications entitled “Army-Navy Aeronautical Specification Fuel; Aircraft-Engine, Grade 100” and the same for “Grade 130”. Grade 99/130 and grade 100/130 aviation gasoline are preponderantly mixtures of liquid hydrocarbons. These aviation gasolines had a permissive 90 per cent boiling point from 284° to 293° F. and a permissive end point of 356° F. The 90 per cent boiling point is the temperature at which 90 per cent of a liquid fuel sample is evaporated in a controlled distillation test. The permissive end point is the temperature at which the last of the liquid fuel sample is evaporated. The grade 100 specification required that the aviation gasoline manufactured thereunder have a “knock rating” not less than 100-octane number. The grade 130 specification required gasoline thereunder to have a lean mixture knock rating not less than 100-octane number, and to have a rich mixture knock rating not less than that of a specified reference fuel containing added tetraethyl lead. Separate specifications on methods of determining the knock ratings of fuels are identified in the basic aviation fuel specifications.

6. The knock properties of aviation gasoline have a very considerable effect upon the power which can be obtained from any given engine. An engine safely developing 1500 horsepower on grade 100/150 fuel may only be able to develop 500 horsepower on grade 73 fuel. Knocking is a form of too rapid combustion of the fuel mixture in an engine cylinder. It results in rapid energy release or detonation usually manifested by an audible knock in the engine. Knocking is also evidenced by overheating, increased vibration, loss of power, and reduced mileage per gallon. An increase in an engine compression ratio to obtain greater power from the engine tends to increase the knock tendency unless a fuel of higher grade is utilized.

7. When the fuel grade includes a number of 100 or less than 100, this number is the octane number. If the grade number is 100 or is above 100, the number is known as the performance number and indicates the relative power that an engine can develop safely with the knocking tendency [439]

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Related

Bereslavsky v. United States
124 F. Supp. 356 (Court of Claims, 1954)

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Bluebook (online)
150 F. Supp. 797, 138 Ct. Cl. 434, 113 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 342, 1957 U.S. Ct. Cl. LEXIS 74, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bereslavsky-v-united-states-cc-1957.