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Union Tool Co. v. Wilson

249 F. 736, 161 C.C.A. 646, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 2291
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 11, 1918
DocketNo. 2918
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 249 F. 736 (Union Tool Co. v. Wilson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Union Tool Co. v. Wilson, 249 F. 736, 161 C.C.A. 646, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 2291 (9th Cir. 1918).

Opinion

HUNT, Circuit Judge.

Appeal from an interlocutory decree in favor of Wilson, appellee, plaintiff, against the appellant, Union Tool Company, defendant, holding that Wilson patent No. 827,595, for an underrearner, patented July 31, 1906, was valid particularly as to claims 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 19, and was infringed as to [737]*737claims 9 and 19 by the manufacture and sale or lease of the so-called “Double Improved and Type E” underreamers of a kind introduced as exhibits. Accounting was also decreed. Tlie defendant denied infringement, and pleaded prior invention and want of novelty. The case was heard in the lower court in conjunction with Wilson & Willard Manufacturing Co. v. Union Tool Co., Edward Double et al., 249 Fed. 729,-C. C. A. -, decided contemporaneously with tlie present case, wherein interlocutory decree was made in favor of the Union Tool Company, finding the Double patent, No. 734,833, for underreamers, valid and infringed as to claims 1, 2, 6, 7, and 8 thereof, and providing for accounting and costs. The parties to the two suits are not identically the same, but the suits pertain apparently to the. same interests, as one. of the plaintiffs in the last referred to suit is the defendant in the present appeal, and the defendant in 2996, the Wilson & Willard Manufacturing Company, is the same company as in this-case, 2918. The same general interests have been found to use the invention of the other interests, with its own, in the making of its under-reamer product. The two suits were instituted under letters patent for uuderreamers for enlarging oil well holes to allow the lowering of the casing. The Double underreamer ¡latent, 734,833, was issued in 1903, and, as stated, the Wilson patent in suit was issued in 1906. In both suits prior patent art was relied upon as a defense, and in both cases it was found that neither patent was anticipated; that is, that the underreamers made by the defendant in the one case infringe the Double patent, and the underreamers manufactured in the other case infringe the Wilson patent.

[1] Claims 9-and 19, found infringed, are as follows:

(9) “An underroamer body terminating in prongs forming a fork and provided with shoulders on tho inner faces of the prongs which form cutter ways and terminate in downwardly projecting lugs, and cutters mounted between the prongs of said fork and having shoulders inside the fork and faces to hear on the projecting lugs.”
(19) “An underreamer comprising a body terminating in two prongs, and cutters each having two shoulders and a bearing face on tho inner side o£ each of the two shoulders to engage said prongs.”'

The contention of the appellee is that claims 9 and 19 use the term “prongs” to designate the portions of the body which are provided with other working features, such as shoulders on their inner faces and the downwardly projecting lugs at their lower ends; that the term “prongs” is used as defining the bifurcated structure at the lower end of the body, which, under the Wilson patent, permits the cutters to collapse closely together, approaching each other between such prongs and likewise permits assembling at the bottom of the reamer and remachining. It is not contended by the appellee that this close collapsing operation of the cutters is found in the underreamers of the Union Tool Company, which are said to infringe; but it is insisted that the interrelation and other construction "pertinent to the provision of shoulders on the inner faces of the prongs and downwardly projecting lugs at their lower ends, with both of which the [738]*738cutters co-operate, have been adopted by the appellant as also have been the assembling and remachining advantages. To this, therefore, we will confine our consideration.

Wilson, in his underreamer, shows a hollow elongated body provided at its lower ends with the projections or prongs forming a fork and terminating at their lower ends.in downwardly projecting lugs; such prongs having shoulders on their inner faces to form ways for cutters. The cutter shanks have bearing shoulders which engage inside of the ways, the cutters also having expansion bearing faces on lateral shoulders, which expansion faces coact with the spreading bearings on the lugs which hold the cutters apart. The lugs terminate at their lower ends in beveled end faces over which ride bearings, in which tire expansion bearing faces terminate at their upper ends, thus causing the cutters in the main to be expanded and permitting them in the main to be collapsed, although the spreading bearings are slightly upwardly and outwardly inclined to terminate the expanding action and initiate the collapsing action by coaction with the expansion bearing faces. The cutters. are pivotally connected with a spring-actuated rod or stem at a T-head or cross at the lower end thereof; the •connection being by means of recesses or pockets in the inner faces of the cutters. These pockets are formed in the cutter shanks. The spring-actuated rod or stem is received within the hollow body of the underreamer, and adapted to move endwise therein; the spring which actuates such rod or stem being confined between a nut threaded onto the upper end of such rod, and a holding device shown in the patent to consist of a block which forms a seat for the spring at its lower end, and through a hole or bore in which the rod or stem may play, such block being held in place in the hollow body by dowel pins or the like. Down-thrust bearings on the body between the prongs cooperate with the upper ends of the shanks of the cutters, and other down-thrust bearings are in the nature of shoulders on the forks at the lower ends of the shoulders on the. prongs, and which co-operate with the cutters at the zone of the bearings. In-thrust upon the cutters in action is taken' by the spreading bearings to which it is imparted by the expansion bearing faces, and out-thrust of the cutters is taken by the shoulders of the ways on the prongs which co-operate with the bearing shoulders on the cutter shanks. The cutters are provided with certain shoulders on their outer faces, which coact with the casing or shoe, causing the cutter to be collapsed when the under-reamer is to be elevated and withdrawn through the casing. A detachable crosspiece or safety bolt is provided between the lugs at the lower ends of the prongs, which to a certain extent braces the prongs and also prevents the cutters and the T or cross from dropping into the hole and being lost, in case the rod or stem should break, and similarly prevents- dropping of either cutter in the hole in case a fracture. should occur through the cross or T. This detachable crosspiece is held in place in two bolt holes in the lugs, within one of which fits a nut into which one end of the bolt is screwed by a suitable implement. For convenience the illustrations may be referred to.

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Related

Cummings v. Wilson & Willard Mfg. Co.
4 F.2d 453 (Ninth Circuit, 1925)
Union Tool Co. v. Wilson
259 U.S. 107 (Supreme Court, 1922)
Wilson v. Union Tool Co.
265 F. 669 (Ninth Circuit, 1920)
Union Tool Co. v. Wilson
263 F. 567 (Ninth Circuit, 1920)
Wilson & Willard Mfg. Co. v. Union Tool Co.
249 F. 729 (Ninth Circuit, 1918)

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Bluebook (online)
249 F. 736, 161 C.C.A. 646, 1918 U.S. App. LEXIS 2291, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/union-tool-co-v-wilson-ca9-1918.