Seiberling v. John E. Thropp's Sons Co.

284 F. 746, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2449
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedOctober 19, 1922
DocketNo. 2862
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 284 F. 746 (Seiberling v. John E. Thropp's Sons Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Seiberling v. John E. Thropp's Sons Co., 284 F. 746, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2449 (3d Cir. 1922).

Opinions

BUFFINGTON, Circuit Judge.

In the court below, suit was brought by the owner of Patent No. 941,962, granted November 30, 1909, to Will C. State, for a pneumatic tire-shoe manufacturing machine. The suit charged infringement by -the John E. Thropp Company of Claims 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13 and 22 to 26 inclusive.

As shown in its opinion, printed in the margin,1 the court below conceived the case was substantially the same as that decided by the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Sixth Circuit, reported at 257 Fed. 74. 168 C. C. A. 286, and without itself entering into a discussion of the issues here involved, it in effect followed that case. As in our view, the record presented in this case is substantially different from that before the Circuit Court of Appeals in the case cited, we are [748]*748justified in placing of record a full statement of the issues here involved and our reasons for reversing the decree entered below.

The case is important. It concerns the machine making of a pneumatic rubber shoe for an automobile tire, and a satisfactory tire is the measure of an automobile’s efficiency. Such shoe is a built-up product,' composed of successive layers of fabric cemented or plastered to each other. Leaving aside the tires made by a single stretch of fibrous material, and which were forced into place on the side of the shoe by what are known as “jigger fingers,” and confining ourselves to shoes in which the material is stretched at different parts of the shoe in two directions at right angles to .each other, and to a process of cementing or plastering them in place by a spinning roll, we note the fact that tires embodying these two features of double stretch and roll-spinning fastening were, before the patent to State here in question, hand made.

A statement of the old, hand-made art is so clearly set forth by Judge Denison in the opinion in the Sixth Circuit case, we copy his words:

“An annular metallic core having spokes and a hub was centrally mounted upon a shaft, so that it could revolve; the core thus resembling the rim or tire of a wheel. This core was approximately circular in cross-section, and its cross-section diameter, as well as its entire diameter through the hub from edge to edge of the rim, were proportioned according to the size of the casing to be made. The operator coated this core with an adhesive substance. He then took a strip of rubber-impregnated fabric, which would stretch out to be as long as the circumference of the core, and in width somewhat less than the circumference of the cross-section. As he revolved the core on its hub, he stretched and pasted this fabric strip upon the core, pressing and shaping it with his fingers or with hand tools, so that it adhered in all places and was without wrinkles. He repeated this operation as many times as there were to be fabric layers in the casing. The impregnating composition, having the character of rubber, would also attach each two layers of the fabric together. The strip of fabric was cut upon the bias, and the warp threads therefore ran from the inner open edge of the tube in a diagonal course along, across, and around the tube to the other open edge thereof; and the next layer of fabric put on was reversed, so that these warp threads crossed those of the first layer at a selected angle. Where the ends of the fabric met each other, they were overlapped enough to make a pasted joint. Each layer of fabric was first pressed down and attached by the hand of the operator on its central portion throughout its length, thus constituting the part of the casing corresponding to the tread. The degree of lateral curvature here is slight, and there would be no difficulty in making a smooth attachment; but, as it was continued around the remaining circumference of the cross-section, there would be an obvious tendency to gather and wrinkle. This wrinkling would be fatal to the strength of the easing, and it could be avoided only by careful manipulation and gradual shaping. The ultimately smooth and unwrinkled surface could be had by virtue of a quality which all woven material has had since weaving was known; i. e., that it will contract in one direction, as it stretches in another. When a fabric is stretched in one diagonal direction, its square meshes become diamond-shaped, with the length of the diamond along the line of stretch and its width at right angles. This produces a contraction of the fabric in the line of its width. In tire building, it is primarily the central part of the strip which is thus stretched longitudinally as it is attached to the tread of the core, leaving the side portions or wings projecting and free. Upon the same principle, if these side portions are then stretched laterally, they will shrink longitudinally, and, if this stretching is done in progressive measure as the edges are approached, the longitudinal shrinking will be [749]*749greatest at the edge. In this way, it results that the fabric may be shaped smoothly and without wrinkles to the entire side core surface.”

With this picture distinctly in mind, it will be seen that in making such a shoe we have to deal with a series of nonuniform circumferences, viz. the longest circumference length at the outer or tread periphery of the core; at the two sides of the core the circumference length will be smaller; and as the inner or bead edge of the core is reached we have a still smaller circumference length. It is therefore apparent that, as there is a lessening of core circumference from the outer or tread circumference zone to the shorter zone of the side and the still shorter one at the bead edge, and as the unitary rectangular fibrous sheet to cover these zones is of uniform length, puckers or wrinkles in such fibrous material would necessarily be formed in these shorter circumferences, unless in some way the rectangular fabric of uniform length was shortened as it was cemented on these lesser core circumference zones. When the tread or outer periphery covering sheet was circumferentially stretched from normal, of course, as explained by Judge Denison, its square meshes became diamond-shaped, with the diamond in the line of circumference stretch. If this stretch was gradually diminished until the side zone of the core wa» reached, the diamond of the covering would correspondingly recede into the square of the normal form, and we would then have the normal unpuckered length of the fibrous material automatically taken care of at that point, and if, as the inner or bead edge of the shoe was reached, the fibrous material was stretched at right angles to the core, then its squares would take the form of radially pointed diamonds, and that would necessarily contract the length of the rectangular material. In other words, there was an initial stretch of the fabric from its normal squares into circumferential diamond-shape interstices. That made the tread portion of the tire.

There was a normal square of the material at the side of the shoe, and below that there was a radial stretch of the covering at the inner or bead edge of the shoe, which changed the square to a radial diamond-shaped interstice and correspondingly lessened the normal length of the fabric. As explained'by Judge Denison, this was accomplished in the hand process by the operator, who “stretched and pasted this fabric strip upon the core, pressing and shaping it with his fingers or with hand tools, so that it adhered in all places and was without wrinkles.” But the avoidance or elimination of wrinkles became more difficult as the zone of smaller circumference length was reached, and in that respect he said:

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Bluebook (online)
284 F. 746, 1922 U.S. App. LEXIS 2449, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/seiberling-v-john-e-thropps-sons-co-ca3-1922.