General Elec. Co. v. United States
| Decision Date | 22 February 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 81-70.,81-70. |
| Citation | 572 F.2d 745 |
| Parties | GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY v. The UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Claims Court |
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COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Douglas B. Henderson, Washington, D.C., attorney of record, for plaintiff.
Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow & Garrett, Richard H. Smith, C. Larry O'Rourke, Washington, D.C., Irving M. Freedman, Utica, N. Y., Harry F. Manbeck, Jr., Fort Wayne, Ind., of counsel.
Steven Kreiss, Washington, D.C., with whom was Asst. Atty. Gen. Barbara Allen Babcock, Washington, D.C., for defendant.
Before COWEN, Senior Judge, and DAVIS, KASHIWA, KUNZIG and BENNETT, Judges, en banc.
This patent suit concerning servomechanisms presents several separate issues. Trial Judge Colaianni has filed a thorough and careful report giving his rulings and finding the relevant facts. Plaintiff has sought review of significant parts (but not of all) of the adverse aspects of the trial judge's decision, and the defendant asks review of all the decision adverse to it. We have heard oral argument en banc and considered the briefs and record. Our conclusion is that the trial judge is correct on all points except his ruling that defendant's overhaul of the 5"/38 single Mk 30 gun mounts at NOS Louisville during the 1967 to 1971 period amounted to impermissible reconstruction for which plaintiff should be compensated. We hold, on the contrary, that such overhaul amounted to permissible non-compensatory repair. On that issue we do not adopt the trial judge's opinion but set forth our own differing views in Part II, infra, of this per curiam opinion. In Part I, infra, we adopt as our own, and set forth, the trial judge's opinion on the other aspects of the case (with minor supplementation and modification by the court).* Our ultimate conclusion is that plaintiff is not entitled to recover and the petition is dismissed.
Trial Judge Colaianni's opinion (except for the part dealing with overhaul at NOS Louisville, and also including minor supplementation and modification by the court) is as follows:
In this patent suit under 28 U.S.C. § 1498, plaintiff contends that various claims of three of its patents have been used or made by or for defendant without license or lawful right. Plaintiff, accordingly, seeks reasonable and entire compensation for such unauthorized acts. Defendant pleaded a whole host of defenses. Indeed, the validity of each of the patents is attacked on a variety of grounds. In addition, defendant alleges that it does not infringe any of the patents at bar.
Plaintiff is the owner by assignment of the entire right, title and interest in the patents here in suit. The parties have agreed to the deferral of the issue of accounting until after final resolution of the question of liability.
For reasons hereinafter stated, it is concluded that the claims at issue in the United States Letters Patents 2,550,514 and 2,414,685 are invalid. It is further concluded that claims 7 and 17 of United States Letters Patent No. 2,679,138 are invalid. It is also concluded that claim 8 of patent No. 2,679,138 is valid.
United States Letters Patent No. 2,550,514 () was issued to Dr. Ernst F. W. Alexanderson on April 24, 1951, for an invention entitled "System for Reproducing Position" and was based on an application filed on May 19, 1932.
The invention relates to position follow-up control systems or servomechanisms. Generally, such systems are characterized by a pilot device and a driven object. An objective is to have the driven object follow the positional movement of the pilot device accurately and in a stable manner. An example of such a system is a shipborne gun and turret which is driven to follow the position of a telescope.
Conventionally, well-known induction devices, commonly referred to as selsyns, are connected between the telescope and gun such that a voltage signal is generated which is representative of the positional departure of the gun from the telescope. Amplifiers are used to amplify the voltage or error signal for actuation of a direct current ) motor which in turn controls the movement of the gun towards correspondence with the telescope. As the gun approaches positional agreement with the telescope, the error signal is proportionally reduced, eventually reaching zero when correspondence is achieved. Basic position control systems such as that described above were known prior to the invention of the '514 patent.
Positional servomechanisms of the above kind encounter problems of oscillation, commonly known as hunting, due to the inertia of the objects involved and the inherent time lags due to the servo components. Hunting can basically be described as oscillation of the gun back and forth about the point of correspondence. Due to the inductance of the servo components, the error signal is constantly lagging the actual departure of the gun from correspondence. As a result, the corrective action also lags the actual departure at any given moment, thus causing the gun to continually overshoot the desired position. Such a phenomena is clearly undesirable in many systems where speed and accuracy of position are critical.
Traditionally, one approach to servo control involved increasing the system gain in an effort to eliminate hunting. The gain of a system is defined as the ratio of output power, current or voltage, to input power, current or voltage, respectively. Such an approach is unsatisfactory, however, since instability is encountered once a certain gain level is reached. Thus, there is a trade-off in any servo system between gain and stability. The prior art of record in this action discloses various techniques of position control aimed at eliminating or preventing the problem of hunting.
The invention of the '514 patent is drawn to a position control system of the above variety wherein hunting is eliminated or prevented.
At col. 2, lines 28 to 38, of the '514 patent, Dr. Alexanderson broadly describes one approach to anti-hunting:
In carrying the invention into effect in one form thereof, changes in the torque or synchronizing force are utilized for modifying the synchronizing force in such a manner as to anticipate the final position and to bring the interconnected devices into correspondence without hunting or oscillation. In a system in which an electric motor is employed to drive an object into positional agreement with a control object, changes in the torque of the motor are so utilized.
Figure 1 of the '514 patent, reproduced in the findings, synthesizes this concept.
In the patented system a pair of selsyns are connected between a gun and telescope for generating a voltage representative of the error or positional disagreement. This error signal is applied to a thyratron control amplifier and, following amplification, is supplied to a direct current motor for driving the gun into correspondence with the telescope.
In order to avoid hunting by the gun, circuitry is provided for generating a modifying signal that combines with the error signal applied to the thyratron amplifier for driving the direct current motor. As disclosed, the circuit includes an anti-hunting means, described as being composed of a magnetic saturable core reactor having a plurality of direct current-supplied control windings and a plurality of alternating current-supplied reactive windings which are inductively related to each other. The control windings are connected in series to form a bridge and the reactive windings are connected in parallel to form a bridge.
One diagonal of the reactive winding bridge is connected to a source of alternating current while the other diagonal is connected to the control windings of an output transformer, which applies the bridge output to the control circuit of the thyratron amplifier. One diagonal of the control winding bridge is connected to a source of direct current while the other diagonal is connected to the secondary winding of an input transformer. The manner of operation of the input transformer will be described in greater detail, infra, but generally can be described as permitting only changes of torque of the d.c. motor to initiate operation of the anti-hunting means.
The primary winding of the input transformer is shunted by an unmarked resistor and connected across the armature of the direct current drive motor. No voltage is induced in the secondary winding of the input transformer when the drive motor current is steady. However, when the drive motor current is changing, a voltage is induced in the transformer secondary and applied to the anti-hunting means. In the absence of an input, the anti-hunting means is magnetically balanced. Any input unbalances the bridge, causing a proportionate output to be applied by way of the output transformer to the thyratron control amplifier. In turn, the operation of the amplifier will affect the direct current motor.
The patent clearly teaches that no modifying signal is to be produced during constant current operation of the direct current drive motor. The self-imposed limitation of the anti-hunting operation by the patentee to only such times when the torque of the direct current drive motor is changing is emphasized at col. 8, line 61, to col. 9, line 3, of the '514 specification:
Thus it will be seen that a change in the direction of rotation of the motor * * * 12 produces a change or a reversal of the phase of the voltage supplied from the anti-hunting device to the control circuit of the electric valve apparatus. Furthermore, it will be observed that since the direct current control winding bridge is connected to the motor circuit through a transformer that the anti-hunting means 55 is responsive only to changes in the motor current and since the voltage which it supplies to the...
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