Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Sterling Cork & Seal Co.

210 F. 26, 1913 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1022
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Ohio
DecidedJanuary 14, 1913
DocketNo. 2,247
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 210 F. 26 (Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Sterling Cork & Seal Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Sterling Cork & Seal Co., 210 F. 26, 1913 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1022 (N.D. Ohio 1913).

Opinion

KIEEITS, District Judge.

With the usual allegations necessary to raise the issue complainant sues on two patents,, one granted to Painter, its assignor, in 1899, No. 638,354, on a machine for automatically sealing bottles, and one granted in 1890, to Painter & Hawkins, No. 643,973, on an apparatus for feeding crowns or closures to bottle-sealing machines. It is admitted that the inventions embodied in these patents are capable of and are in joint use in the art of sealing bottles with the well-known Crown device,- a tin cap with a cork .lining.

The defendant owns patents for caps or crowns, for method of sealing, and for sealing heads to be used on bottle capping machines, .and has attempted to adapt to the use of its patented devices and methods alleged old constructions for limiting sealing pressures, to prevent breakage of bottles by excess pressure, and for feeding caps in right position to the sealing head.

In the issue before us is involved neither a basic patent for sealing by crowns nor the idea of transferring yielding plungers to release pressures to a new art. Painter’s expired patent of 1892 opened the •art of sealing bottles by stoppers of the sort in question, and his patent ■of 1898, No. 609,209, introduced into the art a pressure-limiting device, transferring thereto an old hydraulic mechanismi But for the patents sued on the field is open to.the world, except as limited by the hydraulic patent of 1898, as to which no question is raised.

It is agreed that complainant rests its charges of infringement upon its rights under claims 4, 5, and 6 of patent No. 638,354, and claim 2 of patent No. 643,973. These claims, as applied to the first patent, read:

“4. In a machine for applying closures to bottles, a pressure-limiting mechanism comprising a support for the bottle, a spring held under an original predetermined compression, a tripping mechanism and means for automatically operating the same when said predetermined pressure is reached, substantially as described.
“5. In a pressure-limiting mechanism for bottle-sealing machines, a support for the bottle, a compound cylinder, a spring between the two members thereof, ■said spring being given an original predetermined compression and means substantially as described for releasing said compression when said predetermined [28]*28limit has been reached, by allowing one member of said compound cylinder to slide within the other to shorten the same as a whole, substantially as described.
“6. In a pressure-limiting mechanism for b'ottle-sealing machines, a bottle-; support, a compound cylinder, a spring between the two members thereof held' under a predetermined compression, a tripping device for automatically releasing said predetermined compression consisting of a pair of tripping-dogs pivoted to one member of said compound cylinder, and means carried' by the other members of said compound cylinder for actuating the dogs, whereby said compound cylinder will become automatically shortened as a whole when, the predetermined pressure applied to the bottle resting thereon be automatically released, substantially as described.”

Claim 2 of the second patent alleged to be infringed herein reads:

“2. In an automatic feeding apparatus for bottle-sealing machines, a hopper for the indiscriminate reception of the crowns or closures, a chamber external to said hopper, an inclined bottom to said hopper adapted to lead the closures to said external chamber and a receptacle or cage rotating within said external chamber, having one side closed and a central opening in the-side adjoining said hopper, adapted to receive the crowns or closures indiscriminately from the hopper, and containing in its periphery suitably-formed passages such that the crowns or closures can pass therethrough in one position only; whereby, by the tumbling action of said cage, the crowns or closures are changed in position therein until they present themselves in proper position to pass through said passages into a surrounding channel-way, substantially as described.”

- Although the answer pleads invalidity of the patents in suit, the case is presented almost wholly upon the question whether, under a proper construction of these claims and in view of. the prior art applied to limit them, defendant’s several constructions under attack do infringe. For the purpose of the court at this time it is sufficient to consider the question of infringement only.

[1] Confessedly, yielding pitmen or plungers are very old devices employed in many arts. Patents have been granted for specific forms to be used in pressing glass, molding brick, making coal briquettes, for mower and reaper cutter bars, and to accomplish many other results. So important a place in mechanical arts does such an appliance occupy that the Patent Office is said to have made a separate classification for inventions thereof. In this opinion it would be unprofitable to discuss the many variations and many patented forms pleaded, as counsel on both sides in briefs and oral argument treat the Penfield device, expired patent No. 426,315, for molding brick as defendant’s substantial reliance to avoid charge of infringement of the first patent in suit. If it may be seen that defendant’s construction for releasing pressure before the damaging point is reached substantially and lawfully adapts to the art of bottle sealing the Penfield release, this feature of the controversy before us is over in defendant’s favor, for we are content to rest upon the assurance of counsel for complainant that the Penfield device does not “show any mechanism or any combinations corresponding to the patent in súit or any analogous combination.”

In the margin we show the tripping devices patented by Painter and Penfield and that employed in defendant’s machine,1 with the notations and description used in complainant’s brief. The similarity [29]*29between the defendant’s tripping mechanism and that of Penfield is superficially striking when we ignore the fact that one is to be delicately constructed for rapid use in a process dealing with fragile subjects and the other is coarse and heavy in its application to slow processes and crass material. Complainant’s counsel, indeed, says:

"Tliis mácbine (Penfield’s) presents some superficial resemblance to tbe spring mechanism of defendant’s construction.”

Apparent differences are: (1) Penfield’s plunger operates downward, while defendant’s plunger works upward. (2) Penfield uses no resetting spring, while in defendant’s construction such a device is necessarily employed to put the face of the plunger in position to be acted upon by the machine’s full power. (3) Where Penfield employs two lateral controlling springs defendant has four smaller ones employed in the same apparent office. These differences are not radical. Complainant’s hydraulic patent employed a downward acting plunger, and in one of that sort gravity operates to reset the device; ■ doubling the number of pressure-controlling springs is merely a convenient noninventive division of labor. No issue can be raised upon any of these features of difference. It is well to note that neither of the claims of Painter’s patent, No. 638,354, alleged to be infringed by defendant, provides for a resetting spring.

It is first urged by counsel for complainant, in criticising the reliance upon the Penfield device, that the uses are not analogous.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
210 F. 26, 1913 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1022, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/crown-cork-seal-co-v-sterling-cork-seal-co-ohnd-1913.