Long v. Noye Mfg. Co.

192 F. 566
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western New York
DecidedSeptember 29, 1911
DocketNo. 418
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 192 F. 566 (Long v. Noye Mfg. Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Long v. Noye Mfg. Co., 192 F. 566 (circtwdny 1911).

Opinions

HAZEE, District judge.

The patent in suit, No. 898,237, granted September 8, 1908, to Joseph B. Long and another, on application dated October 23, 1905, relates to a combination in a radiator for use in automobiles of the so-called honeycomb or cellular type. Radiators are used in automobiles to keep the cylinder of the engine cool, so as to prevent the expansion of the piston which is apt to occur because of the surplus heat to which it is subjected by the explosion of gas or vapor. The heat is absorbed by the radiator from the water which flows from the jacket around the cylinder circulating around it and through the radiator which dissipates the heat into the atmosphere, and cools the water as it flows back into the water jacket. Ordinarily radiators are made' of metal, preferably sheet copper. The tubes through which the water flows are very thin, and do not contain sufficient mass to absorb the heat from the water with the required rapidity. Therefore to provide such tubes or the mass of metal composing them with increased radiating surfaces corrugated radiating strips are used which result in giving greater conductivity and radiation, with the result that the heat is more readily absorbed from the water and dissipated into the atmosphere. In the patent in suit the metal strips are corrugated transversely of their length, to further [568]*568increase the radiating surface, and each strip is positioned so that the higher portion of the corrugations or the summits make contact with the summits of the adjacent strip, thereby enabling the strips to vertically rest upon the underlying or opposite strip. Each strip is provided with a plurality of holes extending from edge to edge through which the tubes pass. The claims in controversy read as follows:

“1. In a radiator, the combination with the headers, of a plurality of tubes connecting them and arranged in a row extending from side to side of the radiator, and a plurality of strips extending from side to side of the radiator, said strips having openings through which said tubes pass, said strips being corrugated transversely of their length from edge to edge and so arranged that the summits of the corrugations of adjacent strips contact with each other.
“2. In a radiator, the combination, with the headers of a plurality of tubes connecting them and arranged in a plurality of rows extending from side to side of the radiator, and a plurality of strips extending from side to side of the radiator, each of said strips having openings through which all of said tubes pass, said strips being corrugated transversely of their length from edge to edge and so arranged that the summits of the corrugations of adjacent strips contact with each other.
“3. In a radiator the combination with the headers, of a plurality of tubes connecting them, and. arranged in a row extending from side to side of the radiator, and a plurality of strips extending from side to side of the radiator, said strips being corrugated transversely of their length and having openings extending' throu'gh the summits of some of the corrugations, through which openings the tubes pass, while other of the corrugations are located between the tubes, the strips being so arranged that the summits of the corrugations of adjacent strips contact with each other.”

Claims 1 and 2 emphasize strips which are corrugated transversely Of their length from edge to edge while claim 3 specifies that the strips are “corrugated transversely of their length and have openings extending through the summits of some of the corrugations, through which openings the tubes pass,” and the limiting phrase “from edge' to edge” is not contained therein.

The invention it is thought principally resides in the element which defines the length of the corrugations “from edge to edge,” which phrase is a distinct limitation upon the character of the corrugations-of the strips. The patentee was the first to produce a radiator for use in automobiles in which the strips of metal were corrugated transversely from edge to edge and so arranged that the summits of the corrugations of adjacent strips contact with each other. It is shown that in the Humphrey patent, No. 780,565, for a water radiator, the-plates or strips are corrugated from edge to edge, but such plates are placed apart from each other, and, therefore, are not anticipatory of the patent in suit. The file wrapper in evidence shows that when the Long application for patent was pending the examiners cited the French patent to Grouvelle, No. 356,877, patents to Long, No. 844,685, to Dumas, No. 322,399, to Briscoe, No. 810,030, to anticipate the claims as originally "presented with the result that the applicant inserted in claims 1 and 2 the limiting words “from edge to edge.” Although it now appears that the prior patents to Long, to Briscoe, and to Grou-velle, the principal citations upon which the examiner rejected the original claim Sj were apparently not a part of the prior art under the doc— [569]*569trine of Bates v. Coe, 98 U. S. 38, 25 L. Ed. 68, their dates of issuance being subsequent to the date of-the application in suit, yet I am of opinion that in modifying their claims and narrowing them the pat-entees concluded themselves from insisting on a construction different from that which the modified claims reasonably denote.

[ 1J This court is without power to correct errors or mistakes that have been made in the Patent Office either by the Commissioner of Patents in erroneously considering patents cited by him as belonging to the prior art or by the patentees’ inadvertence in failing to draw the examiner’s attention thereto. Such relief must be sought in the Patent Office by application for reissue. Reece Button Hole Machine Co. v. Globe Button Hole Machine Co., 61 Fed. 967, 10 C. C. A. 194.

The invention, though narrow, nevertheless belongs to the class of improvements, which have advanced the prior art ami produced a new and useful result and accordingly it is entitled to a reasonable degree of protection. Giving claims 1 and 2 such a construction the defendant’s radiators are thought clear infringements thereof. The metal strips used by defendant in its construction are corrugated at their •margins and are arranged at their marginal corrugations to contact the summits of adjacent strips, while complainant’s corrugations contact the summits of opposite strips from edge to edge. Intermediate of defendant’s marginal corrugations the surfaces of the strips are uneven, irregular, and distorted, and the question arises whether such intermediate portions are corrugated transversely of their length so as to come within the terms of the claims. The word “corrugation” is thus defined in the Century Dictionary: “To wrinkle; draw or contract into folds; pucker; to corrugate iron plates for use in building; wrinkled; bent or drawn into parallel furrows or ridges as corrugated iron.”

[2] The definitions apparently do not imply that corrugations shall possess the characteristics of regularity or symmetry, and in my estimation the defendant’s unevenness in the planes intermediate to its heavier marginal corrugations extending from side to side are fairly within the terms of the -claims. Certainly, the middle portion of the strip is not flat, as contended by the defendant,.though having a flattened or crushed appearance.

[3] The word “flat,” according to the accepted definition, signifies something that is level; something- that is without rotundity, curvature, or other variation or inequality.

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Bluebook (online)
192 F. 566, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/long-v-noye-mfg-co-circtwdny-1911.