Sutherland Paper Co. v. Grant Paper Box Co.

82 F. Supp. 250, 80 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 163, 1949 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3004
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedJanuary 25, 1949
DocketCiv. A. No. 6013
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 82 F. Supp. 250 (Sutherland Paper Co. v. Grant Paper Box Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sutherland Paper Co. v. Grant Paper Box Co., 82 F. Supp. 250, 80 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 163, 1949 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3004 (W.D. Pa. 1949).

Opinion

GIBSON, Chief Judge.

This is an action for a declaratory judgment on validity and infringement of Patent No. 2,031,036, on an application of Carl G. Dreymann. The application was filed on May 17, 1934, and the patent was issued to the Grant Paper Box Company on February 18, 1936. The title to the patent is in the Grant Paper Box Company, but the assignment from Dreymann reserves to him the right to veto any sale or license of the patent.

By the patentee’s recitation he presents one phase of an effort to create a moisture-proof package for the packing of foods which require moisture exclusion for their temporary preservation. The invention is of a sheeted form of a composition which has adhesive ability to unite plies of paper and constitutes part of a container wall for food to be preserved.

The recital asserts that moisture-proof paper, as a rule, is made by coating the paper with paraffin, but states that paraffin, although sometimes used as an adhesive to unite two sheets or plies of paper, is not sufficiently strong for the purpose. Reference is then made to “amorphous, substantially saturated compounds formed from high-boiling-point, nonsaturated petroleum derivatives by polymerization and possibly by condensation, and which are known as ‘petrolatum’, having properties that, modified by certain additions, render them adequate, when extended to the form of sheet or film, not only to withstand penetration by moisture, but also to adhere to sheets of fibrous material upon which they may be extended, and to unite sheets of such material between which they may be spread and incorporated. Lately, higher melting substances have been separated from petrolatum and mineral oil and are sold as ‘wax’, to distinguish them from other crystalline, saturated hydrocarbons, sold as ‘paraffin.’ The melting-points of these substances vary from 120° to 170°, F.”

After reciting a procedure in consequence of which the adhesive and plasticity of the amorphous compounds is increased, the patentee, in his description of the patent, stated: “Such procedure consists in dissolving a lesser or greater amount of a substance that, on cooling to about the temperature at which the coating is applied, or just before solidification, forms in the compound a colloidal suspension or gel. I shall use the term colloidal suspension as inclusive of a gel.”

The following is quoted from line 40, second column, of first page of the specification :

“These colloidal suspensions or gels may be produced by adding to the base material certain substances, which at low temperature are not at all or only partly soluble in the base material, but which can be rendered soluble either by increasing the temperature, or by adding also an intermediary substance in which both the base material and the gel-forming substances are soluble.

“As substances which will form colloidal suspensions or gels I may mention: metal stearates, natural and artificial resins (such as coumarone resin), modified phenol-formaldehyde resins, glycol-phthalic acid resins, and other condensation and polymerization products on the market, as also copal and other gums, and so on. Among these coumarone resin, phenol-formaldehyde resin and copal gum are best; and of these three I have found coumarone resin very satisfactory. In using couma-rone resin a solvent should also be employed and a suitable (and non-volatile) solvent is ester gum.”

The specification describes what is known commercially as petrolatum, and specifically those higher melting' substances separated from it and sold as petrolatum wax, to which has been added an unstated amount of a substance which at a particular temperature forms in the composition a colloid suspension or gel. One cannot read the specification without coming to the conclusion that the patentee declared, and felt it to be a part of his invention, that a foreign non-wax colloid material must be added to the base material. Such possible materials were specified as capable of forming such colloidal suspensions or gels: “metal stearates, natural and artificial resins (such as coumarone resin), modified phenol-formaldehyde resins, glycol-phthalia acid resins, and other [252]*252condensation and polymerization products on the market, as also copal and other gums, and so on. Among these coumarone resin, phenol-formaldehyde resin and copal gum are best; and of these three I have found coumarone resin very satisfactory.”

In his description the patentee set forth a discovery of an adhesive which required the addition of a foreign non-wax colloid to the petrolatum base. That is what he sought to give the world, and that is what must limit his patent. ,

The validity of the patent is the first inquiry which faces the Court in its present duty.

The specification accentuates the adhesive feature of the patent claim, by alleging that “This invention consists in a composition of matter having adhesive and water-proofing properties, and the method of its production.” The patent, however, contemplates several features which have been made main features in other claimed inventions. The patentee was interested in the preparation of a laminated paper package for the preservation of foods. Whether he was interested in the paper package, the lamination of it, or the use of a proper adhesive composition to bind it together, he was quite certain to come into elbow touch with other inventions claimed along the same line. Laminant requirements were known. Fiske Patent, issued in 1912, and Fietech Patent, issued in 1918, were laminant patents for the preservation of foods. The use of paraffin as a laminant was known. And Mac-Laren Patent, No. 1,905,923, issued in 1933 upon an application filed in 1929, was for an improved wax composition which could have been used to secure the same adhesive result as that claimed for the patent in suit. That patent was only for a wax composition and no specific use of it, other than as a wax, was claimed for it. Other patents indicate the need of the subject-matter of Dreymann’s patents, but those patents did not meet the need. That remained for Dreymann to meet, and he attained commercial success with his inventions. True, his success is limited by the extent of his discovery, and then, only in. case of infringement.

The present action is not the first that brought the Dreymann Patent into litigation. In 1941 the Grant Paper Box Company brought suit against Russell Box Company in the District Court of the United States for the District of Massachusetts, wherein it charged the defendant with infringement of the patent. The facts of that case were essentially the same as those appearing in the present action. The plaintiff in the instant action, Sutherland Paper Company, and the defendant in the Massachusetts case, Russell Box Company, each have relied upon a composition free from any added non-wax materials.

In Grant Paper Box Co. v. Russell Box Co., in the District Court of Massachusetts, judgment was that the patent was valid but that defendant had not infringed. From this judgment an appeal was filed in the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. 154 F.2d 729. That Court reversed the judgment of the District Court, holding that the patent was invalid. This judgment was based upon Sinclair & Carroll Co., Inc. v. Interchemical Corp., 325 U.S. 327, 65 S.Ct. 1143, 89 L.Ed. 1644.

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Related

Sutherland Paper Co. v. Grant Paper Box Co.
9 F.R.D. 422 (W.D. Pennsylvania, 1949)

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Bluebook (online)
82 F. Supp. 250, 80 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 163, 1949 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3004, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sutherland-paper-co-v-grant-paper-box-co-pawd-1949.