Electric Machinery Mfg. Co. v. General Electric Co.

88 F.2d 11, 33 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 1, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 3019
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedFebruary 15, 1937
DocketNo. 110
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 88 F.2d 11 (Electric Machinery Mfg. Co. v. General Electric Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Electric Machinery Mfg. Co. v. General Electric Co., 88 F.2d 11, 33 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 1, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 3019 (2d Cir. 1937).

Opinion

CHASE, Circuit Judge.

Suits were brought, one in April, 1931, and the second in December, 1932, charging infringement of certain claims in reissue patent No. 17,180 which is owned by the plaintiff. The patent relates to, a method and means for starting synchronous electric motors and for their automatic regulation in operation. It was first issued as original No. 1,640,332 on August 23, 1927, on an application filed by Charles Truman Hibbard January 17, 1920, and was reissued with additional claims on January 1, 1929. Of the additional claims only Nos. 20 and 21 are in suit and no infringement of them is alleged until after the patent was reissued. In the first suit it was alleged that the so-called bumble-bee and tick-lock systems of the defendant infringed and in the second suit a later system of the defendant was accused. These suits were consolidated for trial and will be treated herein as one.

The claims in suit are Nos. 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 40, and 43. All of them were held valid and 8, 12, 40, and 43 were held infringed. As to so much the defendant has appealed. The remaining claims were held not infringed and the plaintiff appealed. As all the claims have to do with a « system of automatic control of a synchronous electric motor using alternating current for power and starting as an induction motor, a proper understanding of the patent and the relation of its subject matter to a prior patent most seriously relied on to show anticipation requires some explanation of both types of motors.

An induction motor, in the only form with which we are now concerned, has two polyphase windings. They are that of the stator, sometimes called the armature or primary winding, and that of the rotor, often called the secondary winding. The stator winding is so arranged that when the switches in the power supply lead-ins are closed a rotating field of electric force is set up. The rotor winding is placed within that of the stator and short circuited within itself, so that when the power is turned on to energize the stator winding induced current flows in the secondary due to the fact that the lines of electrical force cut across the rotor winding. There is a tendency to reduce the cut across the rotor winding which may be attributed to an at[12]*12tempt of the current to follow lines of least resistance or, put slightly differently, to flow in a straight path. So there is a rotary pull on the secondary winding which tends to move it into line with the moving field of the stator winding and produces the torque that turns the rotor. As it turns in starting, and faster as it gains speed up to the maximum, the cut across the rotor winding becomes less abrupt and the induced current there is correspondingly decreased. But the speed of the rotor never reaches that of the moving field in the stator. If it did, there would be no current cut across the rotor winding and so no induced current therein and the motor would stall. The difference between the rotor speed actually attained and synchronous speed is called the slip, and so it is possible to speak of the frequency of the induced current in the secondary as the slip frequency which varies proportionately as the speed of the rotor increases toward or decreases farther from synchronous speed. Overloads on an induction motor not so prolonged as to overheat it create no need for a control system, since the motor operates at all times exactly in the same way from starting up to the limit of its rate of rotation and slowing work but holds back the speed. One of the disadvantages of such a motor, however, is the fact that the induced current in the secondary causes a considerable drain on the power supply which would otherwise be available for translation into torque and so it is desirable to use what is called a synchronous motor where load conditions ' will permit.

The type of synchronous motor to which we are now attentive starts as an induction motor and pulls into synchronism at the point which • may roughly be called the top speed of the induction period of its operation. It has the same polyphase stator winding as does the induction motor briefly described' above. But instead of only one winding on the rotor it has two. What will be called its second winding operates just as does the rotor winding of an induction motor. It is commonly called the “squirrel cage” winding from the fact that it consists of parallel bars attached at either end to rings which short the circuit and that construction makes it look somewhat like the wheel of such a cage. The third or additional winding of a synchronous motor is called the field winding of the rotor and is connected to a separate source of supply of direct current.

When the power alternating current is turned on the stator winding of a synchronous motor the moving field of electrical force revolves as it does in the induction motor. The current cut across the second, or squirrel cage, winding starts the rotor moving as in an induction motor and builds up its speed to the induction maximum, at which point the motor is just out of synchronism. At this point turning the direct current on the third, or field, winding energizes that, causing what is called field excitation, and because it is direct current sets up north and south poles which are so arranged in making the winding that each is so placed as to be attracted by an opposite pole in the moving field of the stator so that the motor pulls, into step, i. e., into synchronism, when the attraction asserts itself to pull in and that also locks the rotor magnetically to the rotating stator field. The rotor then revolves at the same speed as does the electrical field of the stator until some force superior to that of the attraction, an overload for instance, pulls it out or a lowering in the line voltage has the same effect. When such a motor so gets out of step its tendency is to return to an induction motor and build up speed until it will again pull into' synchronism. But to bring that about switching operations are needed. The direct current in the third, or field, winding is repellan! when the motor is running as an induction motor and so it is necessary to continued operation to turn that off at once as synchronism is lost and then to turn it on as synchronous speed is again approached to cause the same pulling into step that occurred before. Then, too, a persistent overload which will heat the motor unduly and prevent its going back into synchronism would burn out the windings in time, so proper regard for safety requires some means for shutting off the power supply if such need arises.

Before the patent in suit, it was customary to perform these switching operations manually. That required much skill on the part of the operator and also his presence near the motor. Besides that, smooth operation was obtained when the direct current was turned on the field winding only when it was done at the instant the alternating current made the [13]*13parts of the revolving electrical field of such polarity that the rotor would be physically in the position to have the magnetism created in its field winding by the direct current attract rather than repel and so add to the pull at once in a forward direction. If the rotor were physically in the right position in respect to the revolving electrical field, this pull in would take place smoothly, otherwise there would be jolts which might cause damage. Obviously this turning on of the direct current manually was done more or less intuitively without any means for knowing exactly when the rotor was physically in just the right stage of a turn.

The alleged invention of the patent in suit is that Mr.

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Bluebook (online)
88 F.2d 11, 33 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 1, 1937 U.S. App. LEXIS 3019, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/electric-machinery-mfg-co-v-general-electric-co-ca2-1937.