Stromberg Motor Devices Co. v. Benecke & Kropf Mfg. Co.

10 F.2d 405, 1925 U.S. App. LEXIS 2264
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedOctober 19, 1925
DocketNos. 3499, 3502
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 10 F.2d 405 (Stromberg Motor Devices Co. v. Benecke & Kropf 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
Stromberg Motor Devices Co. v. Benecke & Kropf Mfg. Co., 10 F.2d 405, 1925 U.S. App. LEXIS 2264 (7th Cir. 1925).

Opinion

PAGE, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff appellant in Nos. 3499 and 3501 and defendant appellee in Nos. 3500 and 3502 is here called plaintiff. Defendant appellee in Nos. 3499 and 3501 and plaintiff appellant in Nos. 3500 and 3502 is here called defendant.

The District Court consolidated all cases, and, after hearing, dismissed them. There is here presented the question of infringement of plaintiff’s Goldberg patent .No. 1,-128,773, where claims 1 to 6, 11, 17 to 22, and 25 to 27, are involved, and of plaintiff’s Anderson patent No. 1,166,734, where claim 15 only is involved. Defendant’s counterclaim brings into question the infringement of Rayfield patent No. 1,335,389.

Goldberg patent No. 1,128,773 : December 17, 1910, Goldberg filed application, on which, on December 1, 1914, patent No. 1,-119,078 was issued on certain claims. Within 60 days after filing that application, he was told that his 21 claims were drawn for no less than four separate inventions. A division was required, and applicant notified to cancel certain matters and modify his drawings. On March 19, 1914, .more than three years after it was required, a divisional application was filed by Goldberg, for and upon which patent No. 1,128,773, in suit was issued February 16, 1915.

In 1909 Goldberg and one Tillotson made application and were granted, June 9, 1914, patent No. 1,099,293.

In his divisional application for the Goldberg patent in suit he said: “In patent No. 1,099,293, issued June 9, 1914, to Harry C. Tillotson and myself as joint inventors, there is set forth -and claimed an arrangement wherein a secondary fuel inlet is provided, and wherein this secondary fuel inlet is permanently open to the carbureting chamber below the throttle. In that application, the height of the nozzle is relied upon to effect the necessary delay in the response of the secondary fuel nozzle, while in the present application, the secondary fuel nozzle is controlled by a valve which co-operates with the valve for the auxiliary air inlet so that the fuel nozzle is opened at the inception of the opening movement of the air valve or at a definite point after the air valve has opened.”

That statement as to' the Goldberg & Tillotson patent seems to be contradicted by the specification of that patent, viz.: “The response of the auxiliary fuel is delayed with the delay in the response of the auxiliary air valve until the greater suctions are attained and this delay may be made more definite by disposing the second nozzle at a higher level than the first nozzle. After the response of both auxiliary air and fuel, the air valve being properly retarded as above described, the co-operation resides in the fact that the issue from the nozzle varies with the aspiration, and the aspiration is determined by the opening of the air valve due to sue-, tion.”

[406]*406Further reference to the specification will show that the statement that the “secondary fuel inlet is permanently open to the carbureting chamber below the throttle” is also misleading, because the application shows that there was provided a so-called “bleeding means for positively preventing even the slightest issue from the fuel nozzle 89 before the auxiliary air valve is opened.” The auxiliary fuel nozzle in the Goldberg patent in suit was no more effectively closed by the valve, or cap, over the end of it. In argument, counsel for plaintiff said: “In the Goldberg-Tillotson carbureter, such control of fuel as there is is obtained indirectly through the control of the air bleed, which delays response of the fuel, and, after response, involves the displacing of gasoline by air until the bleed is closed entirely. In the Goldberg structure the valve is applied directly to the solid column of gasoline, and the response is immediate from a minute supply when the valve begins to open, and increasing until the maximum capacity of the nozzle is reached.”

There is no evidence in the record to support any such supposed differences. Plaintiff’s expert witness was asked nothing about the Goldberg & Tillotson patent on direct examination, and on cross-examination plaintiff succeeded in preventing its witness from answering a question involving that identical matter.

Specification of the Goldberg & Tillotson patent, speaking of the bleeding means, says: “This feature includes means for adjustment by which the bleeder may be brought into and out of action and by means of which, when the bleeder is in action, the response of fuel from the nozzle 89 may be definitely and adjustably delayed even somewhat beyond the opening of the auxiliary air valve.”

Claims 7 and 8, and perhaps other claims, of the Goldberg patent show clearly that there is an adjustable regulation.

Pointing out the difference between the Goldberg & Tillotson patent and the Goldberg patent in suit, defendant’s witness Kinealy said: “The principal difference between the auxiliary carburetor of the Goldberg & Tillotson patent and the auxiliary carbureting element of the Goldberg patent in suit lies in the fact that in the Goldberg & Tillotson the auxiliary fuel inlet is not closed nor is it controlled in any sense other than the flow of the fuel through it is controlled, while in the Goldberg patent in suit the auxiliary fuel inlet is physically controlled by a valve that is seated upon it and it is closed by physically seating a valve on it.”

The flow of the fuel being controlled, the means of control, in this ease, is immaterial, because we are of opinion that in the Goldberg patent there was involved in this respect nothing more than simple mechanical operation that was not invention.

Plaintiff, in argument, has attempted to show that the Goldberg & Tillotson carburetor had a defect, viz., in that there was a back fire which created an intolerable fire hazard, and that that defect was remedied in the Goldberg patent in suit. There is no justification in the record for such a contention. The record shows that the Goldberg & Tillotson carburetor was used on a Stoddard-Dayton ear. Plaintiff’s president testified:

“Q. Was there any difficulty encountered in the operation of the ear with this type of carburetor? If so, what? A. There was a danger of fire on account of backfiring by reason of the peculiar construction of this particular motor.
“Q. Please state what was the success of the carburetor referred to, that is, the Goldberg & Tillotson, aside from this fault that you have mentioned. A. It was very satisfactory in its operation.”

That was a motor, not a carburetor, difficulty, and there is no evidence or reasonable inference that the difficulty would have been remedied by the use of the Goldberg invention in question.

A reading of the 27 claims of the patent and the analyzation of them by plaintiff’s expert witness Webster convinces us that the applicant, having no real substance to present in the application for the patent in question, was endeavoring to make a showing by the use of many words and the multiplication of claims.

In the prosecution of the three patents, viz., the Goldberg & Tillotson patent, the original Goldberg patent, of which the patent in suit is divisional, and the patent in suit, resort was had to every possible means of delay, and, in the face of section 4894 of the Revised Statutes (Comp. St.

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

Related

Jessica Polley v. Golden Restaurants, Inc.
402 F. App'x 5 (Fifth Circuit, 2010)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
10 F.2d 405, 1925 U.S. App. LEXIS 2264, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/stromberg-motor-devices-co-v-benecke-kropf-mfg-co-ca7-1925.