Universal Winding Co. v. Willimantic Linen Co.

82 F. 228, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 2733
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Connecticut
DecidedJuly 27, 1897
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 82 F. 228 (Universal Winding Co. v. Willimantic Linen Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Universal Winding Co. v. Willimantic Linen Co., 82 F. 228, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 2733 (circtdct 1897).

Opinion

TOWNSEND, District Judge.

Complainant herein, at final hearing on the usual bill and answer, prays for an injunction and accounting by reason of the alleged infringement of patents No. 480,157, for an apparatus for winding cops, No. 480,158, for a method of winding cops, both dated August 2, 1892, and of No. 486,745, for a cop, dated November 22, 1892, all of said patents having been issued to Joseph It. Leeson as assignee of Simon W. Wardwell, Jr., and duly assigned to this complainant. A cop — the subject-matter to which these patents relate — consists generally of a ball or roll of thread or rope wound in helixes or spirals on a spindle. Tn most of the ordinary and earlier cops the successive coils of thread were irregularly ivound upon the spindle, without any attempt to arrange the threads parallel to each other. The alleged invention of the cop patent No. 486,745 is therein stated by the patentee to consist in a “cop wound ® * * so as to have greater uniformity, density, and compactness, and so as to facilitate the unwinding, and prevent tangling, and insuring other advantages.” Before discussing the patents in suit, it will be necessary to make some general statements concerning the art. Irrespective of certain alleged anticipations, to be Hereafter considered, there were found in the prior art various forms of cops, distinguished by differences in pitch or angle of the thread and the relations of the threads to each other. 'Certain of these winds are designated ball wind, cross wind, surface wind, Z wind, spool wind, Spacii wind, etc. It is unnecessary to state their distinguishing characteristics. A special form of wind of the prior art is known as the half wind or crescent wind. The wind of the patents in suit is known as the V wind or Wardwell wind. In each of these two winds the thread is ordinarily wound on a core, without any head at the ends, from one end of the core to the other in the direction of a helix or spiral, and is then so reversed as to form a knuckle or abrupt bend, and wound in a reverse helix or spiral to that end of the core where the winding was started. In each the thread is again reversed to form another such knuckle, and, passing across the first helix, is wound in a: second helix, parallel and generally close to the first. In each, complete parallel layers will thus he laid one above the other, forming a solid cylindrical cop alike throughout. The complainant differentiates the crescent wind as follows: fl) It is a modified form of ball wind. (2) It is not wound in spirals, but in the form of a semicircle or semiellipse, and will therefore in its first courses slip towards the middle of the core, and therefore the successive threads may not lie parallel to each other. (3) The threads will never cross each other intermediate of the ends of the core, and hence do not in-[230]*230perlock, and therefore the cop will not be cylindrical in form, and will easily lose its shape. (4) This wind is adapted only for winding extremely small cops. Whether the crescent wind is a modified ball wind is immaterial except in so far as under such designation complainant's expert includes it in the foregoing criticisms of ball winds in general. The criticisms of ball winds generally do not necessarily apply to the crescent wind. The essential feature of the Wardwell wind, as claimed by complainant, is that the wind is spiral in the sense that “the thread turns more than half a revolution in extending from one end of the cop to the other” at such an angle “that when the complete spiral is laid — that is, when the thread has been wound to the end of the cop and has returned — the angle of delivery and return shall be such that the thread will remain where it is put.” The distinguishing feature of the crescent wind, as claimed by complainant, is that the thread, although wound in substantially the same direction as in the ’Wardwell wind, is not spirally wound, because the angle is such that the thread turns only one-half a revolution in extending from one end of the cop to the other, and therefore “the turns of the thread constitute substantially circles or rings at an angle to the-axis of the holder or tube.” This difference of angle is claimed as Wardwell's invention and as the basis of the alleged differences in results. The line between what is thus included within and excluded from the Wardwell invention may be shown by the following statements:

Complainants expert Foster first says:

“I was wrong in stating that a complete revolution was necessary to lay such a spiral or helix as is required hy the patent.”

Later he says:

“Q. Then, if I understand you, everything else being alike in machine, in wind and in cop, a spiral crossing in five-eighths of a turn would not exclude the Leeson invention, a spiral crossing in four-eighths of a turn would exclude the Leeson invention, and as to a spiral crossing in nine-sixteenths of a turn you are somewhat in doubt? A. So far as X can tell without seeing the cop, a spiral crossing in five-eighths would have reverse spirals interlocking between the ends, and would embody this feature of the Wardwell invention. I do not recognize that there would he a spiral at all at four-eighths of a turn, because that would he a one-half turn, winding what I have pointed out as a hall-wind cop. As regards a spiral of nine-sixteenths, if the thread was fine, and the cop relatively long, this would embody this feature of the Wardwell wind if it caused the reverse spirals to he interlocked between their ends.”

Wardwell himself, in the patents in suit, does not claim that any exact pitch or number of turns in the spiral constitutes his invention. On the contrary, he says, in 3STo. 486,745:

“X make use of a tube of any suitable character, and I wind the thread, X, thereon, with any suitable number of turns or colls to tbe length of the tube.”

In No. 480,157 he says :

“As a result of this operation, the reversal of the movement of the guide takes place, not upon the completion of a rotation (or fraction or multiple of a rotation) of the holder, hut after, and only after, the holder has reached the point in its revolution beyond that necessary to complete such movement, and beyond that point which it occupied at the time the guide was reversed upon its preceding reversal of movement, so that the thread held hy the guide is not [231]*231started on its return winding until it has been laid over onto the outer side of the previous coil.”

The crescent cops do not necessarily slip towards the middle of the core. Whether such a wind thus slips depends upon the angle at which it is wound, and the abruptness of the reversal, and may also depend upon whether the core is rough or smooth. The crescent cops, as originally wound, were small sewing-machine cops, and in them the thread did not cross intermediate the end of the core. This point will be discussed hereafter. Wardwell created the cop in the method and by the machine which are the subjects of the three patents in suit. Complainant claims that therein he first disclosed the angle at which threads could be so laid on a cylinder that they would lie parallel to, and generally in contact with, each other, without slipping, and would cross each other and interlock intermediate the ends, and the method and means for accomplishing said result, and that he was the first inventor thereof. Patent No. 480,-157 covers Wardwell’s machine for winding the cops of No. 486,745 by the method of No. 480,158. The claims alleged to be infringed are the following:

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
82 F. 228, 1897 U.S. App. LEXIS 2733, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/universal-winding-co-v-willimantic-linen-co-circtdct-1897.