Hartford-Empire Co. v. Hazel-Atlas Glass Co.

• Decision Date: 28 February 1930
• Docket Number: No. 2162.,2162.
• Parties: HARTFORD-EMPIRE CO. v. HAZEL ATLAS GLASS CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania

39 F.2d 111 (1930)

HARTFORD-EMPIRE CO. v. HAZEL ATLAS GLASS CO.

No. 2162.

District Court, W. D. Pennsylvania.

February 28, 1930.

Byrnes, Stebbins & Parmelee and Clarence P. Byrnes, all of Pittsburgh, Pa., W. J. Belknap, of Detroit, Mich., Vernon M. Dorsey, of Washington, D. C., and R. D. Brown, of Hartford, Conn., for plaintiff.

Green & McCallister and Edgar W. McCallister, all of Pittsburgh, Pa., Stephen H. Philbin, of New York City, Howard R. Eccleston, of Washington, D. C., and Fish, Richardson & Neave, of New York City, for defendant.

GIBSON, District Judge.

The plaintiff is a Delaware corporation, having its principal place of business at Hartford, Conn., and the defendant a West Virginia corporation, having a regular and established place of business at Washington, in the Western district of Pennsylvania. Plaintiff is the owner of patent No. 1,655,391, and in its bill of complaint alleges the infringement of that patent by defendant, and prays that defendant be enjoined from further infringement, and that an accounting of profits and damages be ordered. The defendant, in its answer, asserts that the patent is invalid, and denies infringement of any of its claims if they be properly interpreted.

The patent in suit is for a method of and apparatus for feeding molten glass, and has for its object the production and preliminary shaping of successive mold charges of suitable form for advantageous use in glass blowing and pressing machines.

The first feeding of glass to molds was by hand. The operative thrust a hot metal rod, or pontil, into the furnace. Semiliquid hot glass attaches itself to hot metals, and by taking advantage of this fact the feeder was able to acquire a ball of hot glass upon the end of his pontil, which he retained by revolving the pontil until the mold was presented, when he ceased to revolve it and allowed a desired amount of glass to drop into the mold. This method, among other defects, was very slow, and the articles manufactured by it necessarily varied in weight and capacity. Hand feeding was succeeded by stream feeding, by which a stream of very hot, and consequently quite liquid, glass was allowed to flow from an orifice in the furnace into a mold, or into a combined husbanding and shearing device, and thence into a mold, the portion of glass in the husbanding device being followed by a stream flowing directly from the furnace to the mold. After the proper quantity had been deposited, the stream was cut and intercepted by the shear container and the operation repeated. This method is illustrated by Brooke patent, No. 723,983, issued in 1903. It had a number of defects. The hot liquid glass, when exposed to the air, formed a skin, or enamel, upon its surface, in consequence of which, when the coiling stream of glass fell into the husbanding device and the mold, there was an imperfect coalescence of the laps of the stream and occasionally air bubbles were infolded. The laminations and defects thus created in the mold were repeated in the finished article. The unsatisfactory results of stream feeding led to suspended charge or "gob" feeding, an advanced form of which is illustrated by the device disclosed by the drawings of plaintiff's patent. By this method separated charges were successively fed to a series of molds. The glass being more viscous than that of the flowing stream, and the charge being a single mass of proper size for the mold, the laps and coils of the flowing stream method were eliminated and thus imperfections greatly reduced.

The plaintiff's patent, No. 1,655,391, is one of many in the separate charge feeding field of the glass art. It presents sixty claims, sixteen of which (2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 24 to 31, inclusive, 51, 52, and 60) are not pressed in the instant suit. As fairly illustrating the claims upon which plaintiff relies, we quote Nos. 1, 9, and 18, method claims, and Nos. 8, 53, and 59, apparatus claims:

"1. In the manufacture of glassware, the method of delivering, to successively presented molds, continuous series of similar and compact charges of molten glass of shape and weight appropriate to the particular molds to be fed, which method comprises superimposing a sufficient head of molten glass, of proper viscosity for suspension in mold-charge masses, upon a delivery orifice of a proper contour and area to permit the feeding of charges appropriate to the molds to be fed, and, for each mold charge, discharging the glass through said orifice, reciprocating a discharge-controlling implement toward and from said orifice to determine selectively the shape of the discharged glass suspended beneath said orifice, and severing a mold charge from the discharged glass before the shape imparted to the discharged glass is lost and before the discharged glass receives any substantial under-support."

"8. In apparatus for separating molten glass into mold charges, a container for the glass having a submerged outlet, shears adapted to open and close below the outlet to sever mold charges suspended therebeneath, a vertically movable rigid implement projecting downwardly into the glass in working alignment with the outlet, means for so moving the implement downwardly during the issue of each mold charge, and upwardly after the issue of said charge, that each charge will be produced and selectively shaped in suspension by the movement of the implement, means operating in timed relation to the motions of the implement for closing the shears to sever each suspended charge from the glass above the severing plane and a charge-receiver having its glass-supporting surface spaced below said severing plane at a distance greater than the length of the suspended mold charges when severed."

"9. The method of forming a mold charge of molten glass of desired shape, appropriate to the mold in which it is to be fabricated, which comprises discharging glass downwardly through an outlet and modifying the rate of the discharge by applying to the glass, above the outlet, a force which modifies gravity to produce a rate of discharge for any portion of glass being discharged, proportionate to the desired diameter of that portion and to the tendency of the weight of the previously discharged portions to elongate that portion, maintaining the discharged glass in a suspended mass, and then severing a mold charge from the suspended mass."

"18. The method of feeding molten glass in a regular and uniform succession of suspended and freely dropped mold charges appropriate in size and shape to the molds in which they are to be fabricated, that comprises discharging the glass for each mold charge downwardly around an implement and through a restricted passage having a discharge outlet, moving the implement downwardly in the glass toward the outlet, during the discharge of each mold charge, so as to increase the resistance to the discharging movement of glass in said passage but at such speed as to accelerate the discharge of glass through said outlet notwithstanding such increased resistance, and shearing a mold charge from each discharged mass of glass."

"53. In apparatus for separating molten glass into mold charges and for receiving the charges, the combination, with a container for the glass having a discharge outlet submerged in the glass in said container of a movable implement projecting downwardly into the glass toward the outlet, but never touching the walls of the outlet, and adapted by its upward motion to retard the discharge of glass through the outlet, and by its downward motion to accelerate the discharge of glass from the outlet, means for reciprocating the implement periodically to produce successive masses of glass suspended beneath the outlet, shears out of contact with the glass during the downward motion of the implement and meeting beneath the outlet in timed relation to the reciprocations of the implement to sever a mold charge from each suspended mass, the upward movement of said implement being so timed as to raise the glass immediately above the plane of severance after each mold charge is severed, thereby preventing glass from piling upon the shears, and a charge-receiver having its glass-supporting surface spaced below the said plane of severance at a distance greater than the length of the suspended mold charge when severed."

"59. A glass feeder for delivering glass mold charges of a variety of controlled sizes and shapes, including an enclosure defining a channel for flowing the glass from a furnace and having a discharge outlet near its outer end, an impeller extending down into the glass and reciprocating in line with said outlet to control the discharge of glass from said outlet, shears periodically closing and opening below said outlet, and a system of controls, including means for adjusting the upper and lower limits of the movement of said impeller, means for adjusting the vertical position of said shears, means for adjusting the relative time of operation of the impeller movements and of the shear movements, and means for controlling the temperature of the glass delivered to said outlet, all of the said controls being selected in relation to one another for mutual cooperation and acting in combination, to produce compact mold charges of workable glass below said outlet, to impart to said charges the particular weight, length and cross-sectional dimensions best suited to the molds which receive said charges, to maintain constant and selected weight and dimensions of the charges, and to change the weight and dimensions of the charges to suit a variety of molds."

The drawings attached to the patent application disclose the embodiment of the patentee's claims. They show a glass furnace having a conduit, or forehearth, which at its outer end has a conical well. At the lower, and small, end of this well is a circular orifice, through which is conducted the viscous glass which is to be deposited in the mold. Over the well, in vertical alignment with the...