Don Lee, Inc. v. Walker

61 F.2d 58, 14 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 272, 1932 U.S. App. LEXIS 4188
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedAugust 16, 1932
Docket6700
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 61 F.2d 58 (Don Lee, Inc. v. Walker) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Don Lee, Inc. v. Walker, 61 F.2d 58, 14 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 272, 1932 U.S. App. LEXIS 4188 (9th Cir. 1932).

Opinion

WILBUR, Circuit Judge.

This action was brought by Clinton L. Walker, appellee, to recover damages for the infringement of a patent, No. 1,575,239, issued to. him March 2, 1926, by the United States Patent Office for an improvement in method of counterbalancing engine main shafts, and to enjoin further infringement. The court entered an interlocutory decree affirming the validity of the patent and finding that the patent had been infringed by the de>-fendant, Don Lee, Incorporated, and by General Motors Corporation, a Delaware corporation, manufacturer of the Cadillac automobile which was in privity with the defendant and has assumed the defense of the action, enjoining further infringement by the defendant, Don Lee, Incorporated, and all those in privity with the defendant, and ordered an accounting to ascertain the profits realized by such infringement. From this interlocutory decree the defendant appeals, claiming that the patent is invalid and that there was no infringement thereof, even if valid.

The patent, as indicated by its title, is one for a “method” of counterbalancing main engine “shafts,” not engines,' and, as the usual and obvious method of counterbalancing eccentric weights is by other weights, the p'at-ent counts upon the method of ascertaining such weights and their points of application to the main shaft, that is, their number and their longitudinal positions on the main shaft, and the distance of the eenter of gravity-thereof from the center of the shaft. The patent does not specify the weights nor the longitudinal positions thereof, except as here *59 inafter noted in claim 3, nor their distance from the center of the shaft. The counterweights necessarily depend upon the weights io be balanced, and these depend upon the design of the engine which is not covered by the patent. The patent, therefore, purports to cover a method of arriving at these factors of weight and position by a computation described in the patent. In short, it is a patent of a mathematical formula for the solution of a problem in dynamics. There are five claims in the patent. Claims 1, 2, 3, and 5 relate to the balancing of the main shaft of a particular type known in the engineering field as the “Sharp type.” The first claim of the patent is as follows:

“Having thus described my invention, what I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

“1. A metho.d of counterbalancing an engine main shaft having four throws, with the throws set as follows: Throws 1 and 4 set at 180“ apart; throws 2 and 3 set at 180° to each other but at 90° to throws 1 and 4; which consists in treating each half of the shaft as a cantilever supported at the central transverse plane of the shaft, determining the bending moment of the cantilever at the point of support produced by the centrifugal force of each throw, multiplied by the distance from the central transverse plane of the shaft, and counteracting this bending moment by weights of such mass and radius of mass center and distance from the central transverse plane of the shaft that their bending mo.mont will be equal and opposite to that of the throws to be balanced.”

The patent (page 2, lines 2 to 5, inclusive) discloses the conventional formula for determining the centrifugal force: “ * 4 * Centrifugal force equals .00034 WEN2, where W is the weight, E its radius of gyration, and N the number of revolutions.”

Claim No. 1 amounts to this, given the centrifugal force of each throw ascertained by the conventional formulas, and for convenience indicated by the letters F, F2, F3, and F4, for throws 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively, and representing the distance from the central transverse plane as LI, L2, L3, and L4, respectively, we have the bending moment on one side of the transverse plane which we will indicate by B, as LI FI plus L2 F2=-B, and on the other side, which we will indicate as B2, as follows: L3 F3 plus L4 F4=B2. Having thus ascertained B, we are to counterbalance, or counteract, it by “weights of such mass (x) and radius of mass center (y) and distance from the transverse plane (z) that their bending moment will equal B, and on the other side of the reference plane similarly B2.”

Let x equal the weight and y the radius and z equal its distance from the transverse plane on one side, we have (.00034 xyn2) z=B. Thus, we have three unknown quantities in the equation. The claimant does not undertake in this equation to specify any one of the unknown quantities, but simply claims that whenever the three, x, y, and z, are so combined in the above formula) that they equal B, his patent is infringed. In this connection the following criticism by claimant’s solicitors in their argument to the Patent Office on Walker Amendment C, of Sharp’s solution of the problem in his book published in 1907, p. 117, is interesting: “No data is given as to how to compute the required masses, their axial angles, nor their position longitudinally on the shaft”; they claim Sharp “does not determine the mass, the radius of mass center, the longitudinal position nor the axial angle of the required counterbalance weights.” (See Dr. Durand’s testimony in footnote on this subject.)

Upon this question, Dr. Durand, one of the defendant’s experts, also testified upon cross-examination as follows: “Q. Having once determined a moment such as Walker explains in his patent and deciding to compensate for deflection by placing a relatively large weight between throws one and two and three and four, would there be any particular problem in putting part q£ each weight at some other point on the shaft? A. No problem at all, simply a matter of mechanics as in all these eases of substitution and equivalents.”

It should be added here, however, as will appear subsequently herein, that Dr. Durand regarded the whole matter of compensating both the dynamic forces and the bending moment as a purely engineering problem to bo solved by mathematics and not one requiring inventive genius.

Claim 2 is as follows: “2. A eounterbal-' aneed engine main shaft having four throws, with throws 1 and 4 set 180° apart and throws 2 and 3 set 180° apart but at 90° from throws 1 and 4, and counterbalancing weights for each half of the shaft, said weights being positioned with respect to the throws to be balanced so that their center of gravity falls within the angle produced by extending the center line of the outer throw and a lino bisecting the angle of; the two throws.”

As the angle between throws 1 and 2 is 90°, the bisector of this angle is 45° from *60 both, and the counterweight is to be placed somewhere within the 45° angle formed by this bisector and the center line of the outer throw extended.

Claim 3 places the counterweights as follows : “ • * ' One qf such weights on each half of the shaft being positioned midway between the end throw and the next adjacent throw, whereby to prevent deflection of the shaft between, the center and end thereof.”

It will be observed that this claim fixes the unknown quantity (z) in the formulas above stated.

Claim 5 is as follows: “5.

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61 F.2d 58, 14 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 272, 1932 U.S. App. LEXIS 4188, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/don-lee-inc-v-walker-ca9-1932.