Zotos Corp. v. Rader

16 F. Supp. 681, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1851
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. New York
DecidedSeptember 11, 1936
DocketNo. 7752
StatusPublished

This text of 16 F. Supp. 681 (Zotos Corp. v. Rader) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Zotos Corp. v. Rader, 16 F. Supp. 681, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1851 (E.D.N.Y. 1936).

Opinion

CAMPBELL, District Judge.

This is a suit for the alleged infringement of three patents relating to the temperature control of exothermic (heat imparting) pads used to generate chemically sufficient heat to impart a permanent wave to hair as follows:

Patent No. 1,892,426, issued to Ralph L. Evans, assignor to Zotos Corporation, for method of and means for permanently waving hair, granted December 27th, 1932, on an original application filed January 21, 1932. Divided and this application filed September 22, 1932.

[682]*682Patent No. 1,894,032, issued to Ralph L. Evans, assignor to Zotos Corporation, for method of and means for permanently waving hair, granted January 10, 1933, on an original application filed January 21, 1932. Divided and this application filed September 21, 1932.

Patent No. 1,919,690, issued to Ralph' L. Evans, assignor to Zotos Corporation, for method of and means for permanently waving hair, granted July 25, 1933, on an application filed January 21, 1932.

The plaintiff is vested with title to all of the patents in suit.

The plaintiff is a New York corporation.

The defendant, doing business under the trade-name of Rader Beauty Supply Company at Brooklyn, N. Y., within the Eastern District of New York, is a jobber of hair treating products and engaged in the sale of “New Ray” exothermic pads manufactured by Raymond Lee, who is conducting business under the trade-name Raymond Laboratories, at St. Paul, Minn.

The defense of this suit was openly and avowedly conducted by, and on behalf of, said Raymond Lee.

Notice of infringement was duly given to the defendant, Rader, and the manufacturer, Raymond Lee.

Prior to 1905 the permanent waving of human hair was confined to hair' off the head; that is, postiche puffs, curls, and transformations.

About 1905 NSssler in England began to experiment with a method for perma-, nently curling the hair on the human head, and, having in the meantime improved his process, in 1910 he secured his first patent covering the use of an electrical heater for the purpose of supplying heat for curling hair.

Between 1910 and 1920 Frederics and Sutter, among others, entered the field and employed electrical heaters of various forms.

In 1923 or 1924 Sartory of England perfected a machine in which quick lime, wetted with water, was used to generate heat necessary to create a permanent wave in the hair.

About 1925 Barnett, an associate of Sartory, came to the United States and organized a company known as Vaper Marcel, Inc., for the purpose of manufacturing and selling devices under the Sartory patents.

Vaper Marcel, Inc., went into bankruptcy in 1928, and its assets were purchased by Evans, the patentee of the patents in suit.

Although the predecessor of the plaintiff, with the same organization and management, earnestly endeavored to develop and successfully market the Sartory machine from 1928 to 1932, the Sartory system proved to be a commercial failure.

Other systems, such as steam generated from a central boiler and conducted to the hair through tubes, were evolved about this time for permanent waving.

Hair waving operators were confronted with the problem of the control of generated heat during the delay period to permit of the adjustment of the electrical or other heater about the strands of hair wound upon the mandrels without burning the hands of the operator, to provide a period of acceleration immediately following the delay period during which the temperature would quickly rise to a point where the moisture in the strand would be heated to boiling temperature, and to maintain an extension period during which the heat was maintained at the boiling temperature until the wave was set.

Only partial success was attained in the attempt to solve this problem in the electrical machine, which depended on the skill of the operator, and, where that skill was not displayed in the use of the machine, frequently resulted in serious burns.

In the use of the Sartory machine, which closely followed the practices in the electric machine method, and in effect substituted a chemical heater for an electrical heater, even more reliance was necessarily placed upon the skill of the operator, for its control.

In 1931 a small pad containing exothermic material capable of producing a permanent wave in the hair came to the attention of Dr. Evans, patentee of the patent in suit, who was the plaintiff’s chemist and had forfnerly been a member of the faculty of Columbia University, and plaintiff' acquired the rights thereto.

The active principle of that pad, like the Sartory pad, was calcium oxide or lime, which, when wetted with water, would generate heat sufficient to impart a permanent wave to hair, but, like the Sartory practice, [683]*683it was ungovernable. It did not provide for a definite period of delay, it had no controlled acceleration, and no controlled extension.

Unlike Sartory, it was designed to operate without a metal shell such as he used to overcome the dangers in the use of lime.

Dr. Evans testified that during a test of the pad, wrapped around a thermometer, an explosion occurred, scattering the hot lime over his face, which convinced him of the necessity for a proper control of the reaction.

He then addressed himself to the development of means to overcome these disadvantages and do away with the use of a machine during the hair waving operation.

Evans was not the inventor of the machineless hair waving pad.

Nor did the Evans invention reside in the discovery of any new delayers, any new accelerators, or any new extenders.

Evans’ invention was directed to a new combination of steps performed exothermically, and it matters not if the delayers, accelerators, and extenders be old and well known, as it was the combination, and not the individual elements, that was the invention.

What Evans taught was that it was possible to permanently wave hair by automatic chemical control of an exothermic pad without the necessity of using a machine for purposes of control, and how to do it. By his invention, definite periods for the several steps could be predetermined in the laboratory with a uniformity in practice impossible of accomplishment by different operators, or even the same operator at successive times, with machines.

The patentee in patent No. 1,892,426 in his specification described his invention as follows: “This invention comprises a novel method of and a novel means for controlling the development of heat generated by the self heating chemical wherein certain materials are used to extend the development of the heat over a longer period of time than could be done by the heating chemical itself.”

And in patent No. 1,894,032 he described the purposes for which certain materials are used as follows: “To accelerate the development of heat.”

And in patent No.

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Bluebook (online)
16 F. Supp. 681, 1936 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1851, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/zotos-corp-v-rader-nyed-1936.