Hazeltine Research, Inc. v. Zenith Radio Corporation

239 F. Supp. 51, 144 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 381, 1965 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9774, 1965 Trade Cas. (CCH) 71,355
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Illinois
DecidedJanuary 25, 1965
DocketCiv. A. 59-C-1847
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 239 F. Supp. 51 (Hazeltine Research, Inc. v. Zenith Radio Corporation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hazeltine Research, Inc. v. Zenith Radio Corporation, 239 F. Supp. 51, 144 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 381, 1965 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9774, 1965 Trade Cas. (CCH) 71,355 (N.D. Ill. 1965).

Opinion

*54 AUSTIN, District Judge.

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW

PART I — ‘FINDINGS OF FACT

I. The Parties, The Action, And The Issues.

1. Plaintiff Hazeltine Research, Inc., an Illinois corporation, is a patent holding and licensing company. Defendant Zenith Radio Corporation, a Delaware corporation, is a manufacturer of radio and television receivers. Both parties have regular and established places of business in Chicago, Illinois, in this District and Division.

2. The complaint alleges a cause of action for patent infringement, and the jurisdiction of this Court arises from the patent laws of the United States. The venue is properly laid in this District and Division.

3. The patent in suit is United States Letters Patent No. 2,547,648, entitled “Automatic Contrast Control System For Television Apparatus”, issued to plaintiff on April 3, 1951, as the assignee of Arthur V. Loughren. Plaintiff has owned the Loughren patent at all times since its issuance. It was granted on an application, Serial No. 120,404, filed in the United States Patent Office on October 8, 1949. That application is asserted by plaintiff to be a “continuation” of a prior application, Serial No. 643,287, filed on January 25, 1946. On the basis of that assertion, plaintiff contends that the 1949 application is legally entitled to the 1946 filing date of the earlier one. Defendant challenges this position, asserting that the 1949 application was not truly a “continuation” and hence not legally entitled to the 1946 date.

4. Defendant is charged with having infringed claims 1, 2, and 4 of the patent in suit, the accused products being television receivers made and sold by defendant. All three of those claims were first submitted to the Patent Office in the aforementioned 1949 application, Serial No. 120,404. None of the claims carried forward from plaintiff’s 1946 application is involved in the case.

5. Defendant denies having infringed plaintiff’s patent, and it further avers that, in any event, plaintiff’s claims in suit are invalid. The invalidity defense rests on these two independent grounds:

(a) Defendant asserts that the patent in suit, insofar as the claims alleged to be infringed are concerned, has an effective filing date of October 8, 1949, when the second application was filed, and that the claims in suit are accordingly invalid by reason of publication of their subject matter, and public use and sale thereof in this country, more than one year before the filing date of the patent.

(b) Defendant asserts that the claims in suit are void, regardless of their effective filing date, for failure to describe any invention patentable over the prior art.

Defendant also pleaded that the patent in suit is unenforceable by reason of its misuse by plaintiff. This defense, however, was reserved for separate trial, along with defendant’s counterclaim seeking damages from plaintiff for antitrust law violations.

II. Facts Concerning Electrical Concepts And Circuit Elements Involved In The Case.

6. The term “current”, in the electrical sense, refers to movement of electric charges. There are two types of electrical charge — positive and negative —but normally only negative charges (known as electrons) are mobile, and in consequence electric current nearly always consists of a flow of electrons. It is a characteristic of electric currents that they can flow only in a closed path or loop, and such a closed path is known in electrical parlance as a “circuit”. A simple circuit may consist of only a single loop; more complex' circuits may involve several interconnected loops.

*55 7. There are two basic types of electric current, known respectively as “direct current” and “alternating current”. A direct current is one that flows around a circuit in only one direction, whereas an alternating current is one which periodically reverses its direction of flow. In television circuits, the currents are often of complex character, involving both direct-current components and alternating-current components.

8. The force that makes current flow in a circuit is commonly called “voltage” or “potential”; it may be thought of as electrical “pressure”, analogous in some respects to hydraulic pressure. Voltage results from the fact that unlike electric charges exert an attractive force on one another, while like charges exert on one another a corresponding repelling force. Anything that will cause a non-uniform distribution of electric charge in an object will create a voltage, and such voltage will produce an electric current if an electrical conductor is provided to complete a circuit between the oppositely charged portions of the object. The common chemical battery is one familiar type of voltage-generating device.

5. Voltage is commonly measured from one point in a circuit with respect to some reference point in the same circuit. In television equipment, the reference point most commonly used is the metal chassis on which the parts are mounted, and this is usually called “ground”, even though in practice there may be no actual conductor joining the metal chassis to the earth.

10. A “resistor” is an electric circuit element intentionally designed to offer resistance to the flow of electric current through it, the amount of such resistance being measured in terms of a unit called the “ohm”. When current flows through a resistor, a voltage proportional in magnitude to that of the current appears across the resistor’s terminals. Accordingly, in addition to being used for other purposes, resistors are often employed in television apparatus to derive from a varying signal current a proportionally varying signal voltage. When thus used, a resistor may be called an “impedance” or “load impedance”.

11. A “capacitor” is an electric device having the property of storing electric charge, analogous in some ways to an elevated water tank. When connected in a circuit with a direct-voltage source, a capacitor will accumulate charge from the source until the stored charge produces a counter-voltage equal to the source voltage. If a charged capacitor is connected into a conductive circuit, it will act temporarily as a voltage source and drive current around the circuit. Because a capacitor, unlike a battery, has no internal means of renewing its charge, however, the voltage of the capacitor will diminish as the current flows and ultimately drop to zero, unless its charge is replenished from some outside source.

12. Of outstanding prominence among the electrical components dealt with in this record are the devices known as “vacuum tubes”. Two types are relevant here — the two-element vacuum tube, known as a “diode”, and the vacuum tube having three or more elements, generically known as a “grid-controlled tube”.

13. A two-element vacuum tube or “diode” consists of an evacuated envelope, usually made of glass, containing one conductive element called a “cathode” and another called an “anode” or “plate”. These electrodes are spaced a short distance apart, with a vacuum in between. The cathode is coated with a material having the property, when heated, of giving off electrons (i. e., negative electric charges) in great quantities.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc.
395 U.S. 100 (Supreme Court, 1969)
MORRIS
11 I. & N. Dec. 537 (Board of Immigration Appeals, 1966)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
239 F. Supp. 51, 144 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 381, 1965 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9774, 1965 Trade Cas. (CCH) 71,355, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hazeltine-research-inc-v-zenith-radio-corporation-ilnd-1965.