General Electric Co. v. Hoskins Mfg. Co.

224 F. 464, 140 C.C.A. 150, 1915 U.S. App. LEXIS 1907
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedMay 20, 1915
DocketNo. 2152
StatusPublished
Cited by36 cases

This text of 224 F. 464 (General Electric Co. v. Hoskins Mfg. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
General Electric Co. v. Hoskins Mfg. Co., 224 F. 464, 140 C.C.A. 150, 1915 U.S. App. LEXIS 1907 (7th Cir. 1915).

Opinion

KOHLSAAT, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above).

[1] At the threshold we are confronted with appellant’s attack upon the patent growing out of the proceedings in the Patent Office, which, it is contended, show that appellee abandoned the subject-matter covered by the patent, or at least so narrowed it that it may not now be construed to cover appellant’s resistance element. These matters are fully and satisfactorily covered by the. opinion of the trial court ([D. [467]*467C.] 212 Fed. 422), -and we are content to accept the conclusions there arrived at, and to hold that the claims are good for whatever of invention they disclose.

At first blush, appellee seems to have led a daylight assault upon the Placet patent fortifications and to have carried off Placet’s somewhat unappreciated offspring from under the very cannon’s mouth, for purposes of more ardent, if not disinterested, coddling. Placet, who discovered how to and did make pure chromium at a cost and in quantities suitable for commercial purposes, by the process of electrolysis, claims for his product that:

“It improves all metals and alloys with which it is mixed, by imparting- to them the qualities peculiar to itself. It renders them harder, more resistant to shocks, tension and friction, and also renders them more proof against the destructive action of tho air, moisture, acids and high temperatures,”

—and says that, by reason of. their resistance to high temperatures they are highly suitable -for the manufacture of tuyeres, hearths, and fire irons, and that it “increases the electrical resistance of manganese, ferro-manganese,. ferro-nickel and.other metals employed in the manufacture of conductors of high electrical resistance.”

[2] The invention of toasters, heaters, electrical ironers, and the like had begun, and it was apparent that in these, as well as in the art generally, the need of conductors having great durability when subjected to heat was at hand. This involved also substances which possessed the property of ductility to a degree sufficient to permit the drawing of. filaments, sirands, wire, etc., for use as electrical conductors. Platinum alone was then recognized as an enduring material suitable for conductors which were required to be subjected to great heat. Its cost prohibited its commercial use. Consequently the Marsh discovery was hailed as an available substitute. It, was and is a most valuable resistance material. It lasts when subjected to heat from 800° to 1000° C. 150 times as long as anything in the prior art, except platinum, unless Placet may be construed to have disclosed the concept; for unless Placet anticipates Marsh’s material as. an electrical resistance element, it is not anticipated. It will be seen from Placet’s linglish patent that the patentee leaves it to others to ascertain by experiment products of chromium and metals in alloy suitable for high resistance and those disclosing the element of resistance to high temperatures. Placet’s discoveries were before the public about II years before Marsh’s patent was granted, from which fact it may be at least conjectured that the valuable resistance and duration properties as resistance elements, which appellant finds disclosed therein, were not ostentatiously in evidence. Now, the law is well settled that in order to anticipate a later invention, the prior description must be such as to show that the article described in the patent can be certainly arrived at by following the prior description without the assistance of local knowledge or local prior use in the locality where the description is published, and without experimentation.

In Atlantic Giant Gunpowder Co. v. Parker, No. 625 Fed. Cas., cited and approved by Judge Lacombe in Badische Anilin & Soda Fabrik v. Kalle, 104 Fed. 802, 44 C. C. A. 201, Judge Blatchford says:

[468]*468“It is not enough to show that, by the lucky accident, of taking gunpowder of the proper quality, a compound may be obtained which is unlike that indicated by such description. By the light of what Nobel has taught in the patent sued on, much can now be asserted to be seen in what was'published before, which no one ever, in fact, saw in it before the original of the patent sued on was taken out.”

In Hogan v. Westmoreland Specialty Co. et al. (C. C.) 163 Fed. 289, Judge McPherson held that the scientific announcement that, as the OH group in cellulose molecules “are suppressed by combination (with negative radicals to form the cellulose esters), the products exhibit decreasing attractions for atmospheric moisture,” while perhaps sufficient to advise a chemist, was not sufficient to constitute a matter of common knowledge, chargeable to makers of saltcellar tops or dredges, that a celluloid cap would keep the salt dry when a glass or metal cap would not.

To anticipate, a prior patent, says Hopkins on Patents, vol. 1, p. 261, must disclose a substantial representation of the device of the later patent, “in such full and clear terms as would enable one skilled in the art to practice his invention without the necessity of experimenting” — citing several authorities.

In Westinghouse Air Brake Co. v. Great Northern Ry. Co., 88 Red. 258, 31 C. C. A. 525, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, speaking of an alleged anticipating English patent, says:

“Tbe prophetical suggestions in English patents of what can be done, when no one has ever tested, by actual and hard experience* and under the stress of competition,- the truth of these suggestions, or the practical difficulties in the way of their accomplishment, or even whether the suggestions are feasible, do not carry conviction of the truth, of these frequent and vague statements.”

In Schmertz Wire-Glass Co. v. Western Glass Co. (C. C.) 178 Fed. 977-989; affirmed by this court 185 Fed. 788, 109 C. C* A. 1, it was said the alleged prior description cited as an anticipation “must be an account of a complete and operative invention, ‘capable of being put into practical operation’” — citing Seymour v. Osborne, 11 Wall. 516, 20 L. Ed. 33, and other cases.

As before stated, Placet’s statements, if taken at their face value, turn .out to be untrue in many cases when subjected to experiment. It is not true that when alloyed with metal, chromium always brings to the alloy its own distinctive specific properties. Some reference to the results of experiments had with chromium and some of the metals may serve to show how little Placet understood or imparted to the public on the subject of chromium alloys as resistance elements, viz.:

Resistivity Not Increased in All Cases by Chromium.

It appears from defendant’s Exhibit No. 10, Hansen’s Diagram, that an alloy of iron 70 per cent, and nickel 30 per cent, gives a resistivity of 80.5 microhms, while an alloy of chromium 20 per cent., iron 56 per cent., and nickel 24 per cent, gives a resistivity of 79.6 microhms. From the same exhibit it appears that an alloy of iron 67 per cent, and nickel 33 per cent, gives a resistivity of 87.0 microhms. If 5 per cent, of chromium be added, there is a decrease of from 2 [469]

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Bluebook (online)
224 F. 464, 140 C.C.A. 150, 1915 U.S. App. LEXIS 1907, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/general-electric-co-v-hoskins-mfg-co-ca7-1915.