Application of Jacoby, Patent Appeal No. 6838.

Decision Date14 November 1962
Docket NumberPatent Appeal No. 6838.
Citation309 F.2d 513,135 USPQ 317
PartiesApplication of Ben JACOBY, Jr.
CourtU.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)

Henry Powers, Edward J. Mahler, Robert Alpher, New York City, and Robert H. Bachman, Hamden, Conn., for appellant.

Clarence W. Moore, Washington, D. C. (Joseph F. Nakamura, Washington, D. C., of counsel), for the Commissioner of Patents.

Before WORLEY, Chief Judge, RICH, MARTIN, and SMITH, Judges, and Judge JOSEPH R. JACKSON, Retired.

RICH, Judge.

This appeal is from the decision of the Patent Office Board of Appeals affirming the examiner's rejection of claims 33, 34, 35, and 41 in application Ser. No. 559,846, filed January 18, 1956, for "Radiator." Claims 3, 36, 37, 38, 40 and 42 stand allowed.1

Appellant's invention is disclosed as including two fluid-carrying "boiler pipes." Interconnecting these pipes are a plurality of radiator core fluid-carrying conduits. The main function of the conduits is to allow for rapid heat transfer from the fluid passing therethrough, to and through the walls of the conduits and thence to the surrounding air. The issue is the obviousness of including in the configuration of such conduits a constriction or "venturi" portion intermediate their ends. Appellant's specification discusses this configuration as follows:

"To increase the transfer of heat from the fluid in the conduits to the tubes it has been found to be particularly advantageous to provide the conduits with a venturi-tube configuration. This particular configuration provides for a scrubbing action by the fluid flowing through the conduits against the conduit walls so that the effect of an insulating film on the conduit walls is greatly reduced, if not for all practical purposes eliminated entirely."

Referring to the film in greater detail, the specification also states:

"Fluid flowing through a straight tube of substantially constant cross section inherently tends to create a film on the inside wall of the conduit. This film remains substantially fixed or static relative to the conduit wall and the fluid flowing through the conduit is moving relative to the film. In other words, the insulating film in effect serves as a liner within the conduit. By providing the radiator tubes with conduits having a venturi-tube configuration * * * the formation of an insulating surface film is retarded on the inner walls of the conduits because of the change in velocity of the fluid as it passes through the restriction in the venturi-tube and also, because of the turbulence of the fluid as it passes through a tube of this type."

Claim 34 is exemplary and reads:

"34. A heat exchanger comprising a pressure welded seamless metal sheet having internally disposed therein a tubular conduit bulged out of the plane of said sheet; pressure welded portions of said sheet laterally defining said conduit in said sheet and also forming a seamless integral extension of the walls of said conduit; and said conduit having at least one intermediate portion thereof narrowed into a constriction."

The claims on appeal stand rejected as unpatentable over (1) the Grenell et al. patent, No. 2,759,247, disclosing heat exchanger cores having conduits bulged out of pressure-welded seamless sheets and (2) the Merritt patent, No. 1,900,836, disclosing radiator conduits each having a single constricted or "venturi" portion intermediate their ends.2 Merritt's specification contains the following explanation of why his radiator conduits are constricted:

"An object of my invention is to so construct the liquid containing vessel that portions of the liquid contained therein will be frozen before other portions of the liquid contained therein, so that those portions of the liquid which freeze first will force by their freezing pressure the liquid which is to be frozen last to some other vessel or through an outlet provided in said vessel before freezing, thereby preventing the bursting of the vessel."

The examiner set forth his rejection, in part, as follows:

"Claims 33-37 and 41 stand rejected as unpatentable over Grenell et al in view of Merritt on the ground that no invention exists in modifying the structure of the primary reference by providing the conduits 12 with `at least one intermediate portion thereof narrowed into a constriction\' * * *.
* * * * * *
"Applicant\'s contentions that the several patents are deficient and are not related to the same art nor the same problems, is held to be untenable. * * * under any normal operating condition, to which Merritt\'s structure may be subjected, his tube is no different from that claimed in the instant case and thus it follows that any increase in heat transfer, if any increase is obtained at
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