Perkins Glue Co. v. Gould Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 18 June 1923
• Docket Number: 3246.,3245
• Citation: 292 F. 596
• Parties: PERKINS GLUE CO. v. GOULD MFG. CO. et al. SAME v. WISCONSIN CHAIR CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

292 F. 596

PERKINS GLUE CO. v. GOULD MFG. CO. et al.

SAME v. WISCONSIN CHAIR CO. et al.

Nos. 3245, 3246.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

June 18,1923

Rehearing Denied October 1, 1923.

Appeals from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

Separate suits in equity by the Perkins Glue Company against the Gould Manufacturing Company and others and against the Wisconsin Chair Company and others. Decrees for defendants, and complainant appeals. Affirmed.

For opinion below, see 280 F. 728.

Thomas Ewing and Gorham Crosby, both of New York City, for appellant.

Wm. H Davis, of New York City, for appellees.

Before BAKER and PAGE, Circuit Judges, and CARPENTER, District Judge.

BAKER Circuit Judge.

In each of these cases appellant based its complaint upon claims 28 30, and 31 of reissue patent No. 13,436, July 2, 1912, for improvements in glue and the method of making the same. The bills were dismissed on the ground of noninfringement. See 280 F. 728.

The claims in suit read as follows:

'28. A glue comprising cassava carbohydrate rendered semifluid by digestion and having substantially the properties of animal glue.

'30. A wood and fiber glue formed of a starchy carbohydrate or its equivalent by union therewith of about three parts or less by weight of water and alkali metal hydroxide.

'31. A wood and fiber glue containing amylaceous material as a base dissolved without acid in about three parts of water or less, and being viscous, semifluid, and unjellified.'

In Solva Glue Co. v. Perkins Glue Co., 251 F. 64, 163 C.C.A. 314, this court considered the validity and scope of this same patent in view of the prior art. And in Perkins Glue Co. v. Standard Furniture Co. (C.C.A.) 287 F. 109, the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has recently given its estimate of this patent, in view of the prior art and prior decisions.

From the former decision in this court it appears that the patent contains five classes of claims: (1) The process of making from starch a base for glue; (2) the glue base as a product (3) the process of converting the glue base into glue; (4) the combination of the two aforesaid processes; (5) claims for glue as a product. The first three groups were held to be invalid, the fourth and fifth were sustained, and the particular question now here for decision is whether the claims in group 5 are limited to a product that is the result of practicing the process of claims in group 4, or should extend to all glues made from starch bases irrespective of the method, provided only that they have the essential characteristics of the glue made by the process of the claims in group...