UMC Electronics Co. v. United States

Court of Claims

UMC Electronics Co. v. United States

8 Cl. Ct. 604, 228 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 396, 1985 U.S. Claims LEXIS 936

CourtUnited States Court of Claims

DecidedAugust 2, 1985

DocketNo. 335-80C

StatusPublished

Cited by2 cases

This text of 8 Cl. Ct. 604 (UMC Electronics Co. v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook

UMC Electronics Co. v. United States, 8 Cl. Ct. 604, 228 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 396, 1985 U.S. Claims LEXIS 936 (cc 1985).

Pincite

Opinion

OPINION

MARGOLIS, Judge.

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1498(a), the plaintiff brought this action to recover reasonable and entire compensation for infringement of its patent by the United States. The defendant argues that it has not infringed the patent and that the patent is invalid. During a four-day trial the parties presented evidence and testimony to a judge of this court, who retired without having made findings of fact or conclusions of law. The parties have waived a new trial and have submitted post-trial briefs. After hearing oral argument on those briefs and considering the entire record, the Court finds that the plaintiff’s patent is valid but not infringed.

BACKGROUND

A. Navy Procurements

On February 22, 1972 Preston R. Weaver was issued the patent in suit, U.S. Patent No. 3,643,513 (the ’513 or Weaver patent). Weaver assigned his patent to the plaintiff, UMC Electronics Company (UMC). The patent discloses an aviation counting accelerometer (ACA) that employs an analog [607]*607transducer, a motion sensing device that emits an analog signal (voltage) proportional to force or stress experienced by a motion sensing element. A complete ACA senses and records the acceleration load levels that aircraft undergo during inflight maneuvers. It should record only acceleration loadings caused by maneuvers and ignore parasitic or transient acceleration signals—that is, vibrations caused by such things as gusts of wind, firing weapons, and the aircraft’s engine. Records of load levels of acceleration can indicate an aircraft’s remaining useful life and show the need for structural overhaul or rotation to different service, e.g., from combat to reconnaissance.

Before the plaintiff entered the ACA field, the U.S. Navy procured its ACA’s under military specification Mil-A-22145 from the Maxson Electronics Corporation and from Giannini Controls Corporation, which has become part of the Conrac Corporation. These ACA’s use electromechanical transducers to generate mechanical signals that indicate levels of acceleration. In such transducers, a seismic mass moves in response to input acceleration, deflecting a spring suspension by a distance proportional to the acceleration. As the mass moves, it touches probes or draws a brush across a set of contacts that are positioned to open and close circuits representing present acceleration levels. The output voltage does not vary with acceleration.

The natural frequency of the mass-spring system limits the ability of the electromechanical transducers to filter out high-frequency acceleration loadings that represent vibration. But an analog transducer, like the one used in the plaintiff’s device, generates a varying electrical signal that can be filtered electronically to remove superimposed vibrations.

Personnel at the Naval Air Development Command were never happy with either the Maxson or Giannini ACA’s because they recorded data that defied common sense, failed to count accelerations, or counted accelerations that never occurred. In November of 1964 the Navy’s Aeronautical Structures Laboratory analyzed the Navy’s ACA systems and found that twenty-five percent of the Giannini units and thirty-three percent of the Maxson units miscounted. As a result of this study, the Navy proposed to remove Maxson ACA’s from its Qualified Products List.

In early 1966, employees of the Navy’s Aircraft Structures Laboratory contacted Weaver, who was then working for UMC. They told him they were having problems with their ACA’s and showed him examples of faulty ACA data. They informed him that the Navy needed additional ACA’s and wanted to buy more accurate ones. Transcript (Tr.) at 24-25, 29.

Later in 1966 the Navy issued requests for proposals to supply ACA’s that met military specification MÜ-A-22145A. On August 25, 1966, UMC submitted a proposal to build such a device (the UMC-A). The UMC-A contains an electromechanical transducer. On December 1, 1966 the Navy awarded UMC a contract to supply approximately 1,600 UMC-A model accelerometers.

In early 1967 UMC discovered that it could not build the UMC-A to meet the static calibration requirements of the specification (that is, when subjected to the same acceleration load on different occasions, the device sometimes counted and sometimes failed to count). In order to prevent UMC from losing the contract, Weaver began work on a different accelerometer between mid-April and mid-May of 1967. This accelerometer (the UMC-B) used an analog transducer, as does the device that Weaver eventually patented. Weaver satisfied himself that the UMC-B could function by building and testing an engineering prototype.

On May 22, 1967 the Navy issued a new ACA specification, MÍ1-A-22145B, which superceded MÍ1-A-22145A. In July it issued a request for proposals to deliver ACA’s built to the new specifications, RFP N00383-68-R-0001 (RFP ’0001). UMC responded to this request on July 27, 1967 with a letter describing an ACA that uses an analog transducer. On August 2, 1967 [608]*608UMC submitted a technical proposal, and on August 9, 1967 UMC demonstrated a prototype of the UMC-B to the Navy. The Navy later cancelled the UMC-A contract for default.

Early in 1968 the Navy cancelled RFP ’0001, and on July 12, 1968 it issued another invitation for bids to supply ACA’s. Thirteen companies submitted technical proposals, ten of which the Navy rejected in the first step of the procurement. On November 29, 1968, as the second step, the Navy issued an invitation to three companies: UMC, Aerodyne Controls Corporation, and Systron-Donner Corporation (SDC). SDC won the contract. UMC has never produced the device disclosed by the Weaver patent.

Since 1970 the Navy has procured ACA’s from only one manufacturer, SDC. The SDC ACA employs an analog transducer. The plaintiff asserts that the SDC ACA infringes the Weaver patent.

B. Weaver’s Invention

In the plaintiff’s device, an analog transducer generates an electric current proportional to the acceleration experienced by the aircraft on which the device is mounted. A filter eliminates transient accelerations from the current, which passes to five voltage dividers (components 45-49 on Figure 4 of the ’513 patent). The dividers determine if the current has exceeded certain levels, the “reset level” and load levels 1-4 (LL1-LL4). Each load level signifies a higher acceleration load. See Figure 3, which illustrates the relation between acceleration and voltage.

When the electrical signal rises to the reset level, the output of amplifier 45b activates timer 53, which begins a timing cycle (point t0 on Figure 3). As the signal reaches LL1-LL4, it successively activates amplifiers 46b-49b, each of which energizes a latch circuit 46c-49c. The latch circuits store the information that the aircraft has experienced a corresponding load level of acceleration. After timer 53 has completed a timing cycle it activates release gate 54, which allows gates 46d-49d to transfer the information stored in the latch circuits to the corresponding counters 46e-49e.

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