Hookless Fastener Co. v. GE Prentice Mfg. Co., 183.

• Decision Date: 05 February 1934
• Docket Number: No. 183.,183.
• Citation: 68 F.2d 940
• Parties: HOOKLESS FASTENER CO. v. G. E. PRENTICE MFG. CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

68 F.2d 940 (1934)

HOOKLESS FASTENER CO. v. G. E. PRENTICE MFG. CO.

No. 183.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

February 5, 1934.

Robert Cushman, of Boston, Mass., Drury W. Cooper, of New York City, and Richard F. Walker, of Boston, Mass., for appellant.

Merrell E. Clark and Charles Neave, both of New York City, R. S. Kelley, of Meadville, Pa., and Charles H. Walker, of New York City, for appellee.

Before L. HAND, SWAN, and CHASE, Circuit Judges.

L. HAND, Circuit Judge.

The very full and careful opinion of the District Judge makes it unnecessary for us to state the nature of the inventions, the scope of the patents and their claims, or the prior art. We refer to it and proceed at once to our own disposition. As to Sundback's patent the question of the validity of all the claims in suit except 18, depends upon the new feature of holding together the wings of the "slider" by a rivet to which the pull is attached. We should have to be well convinced that so slight a change would be invention, even if it were new; but it was not. Sundback's earlier patent, No. 1,302,606, had a "yoke member," 10, which held the wings against spreading. True, it was not a rivet, if that be important, which we doubt; but if it be, we cannot see how the claims can escape Aronson, 1,060,412, where an indubitable rivet held together the wings. It is true that the pull was not attached to it, any more than it was to Exhibit F, which apparently followed Aronson; but we cannot take very seriously such a detail, especially in the absence of any proof that it was important to the art. So far as we can see, the pull fastened to the rivet became desirable only after the cam lock came in, to which it was an incident. The art had gone away from a fixed, and towards a sliding, pull, which had obviously advantages. It is the merest question of convenience where to fix the pull; it required no inventor to select the rivet. Claim 18 is a little different; it includes the "tabs" on each side of the neck, bent over so as to form the inside of the divergent channels. We agree with the judge's analysis of Rocke's patent, No. 1,511,777; Rocke's "tabs" were not "integral" with the neck which held the wings together. The member, 17, in Sundback's patent, No. 1,302,606, was confessedly not "integral" with them, though it functioned as though it were. In Exhibit U, made in accordance with this Sundback patent, the change has been made, but it is not clear that this was produced before the application for the patent in suit. Again, however, it was a very trivial change in design to incorporate the "tabs" into the yoke. We think the claims in suit invalid.

While the Whitney patent is rather close to the line of invention we are disposed to give it the benefit of the doubt. It is quite true that the "cam lock" was very old, and had been applied to all sorts of other things. Moreover, there was nothing troublesome in adapting it to the "sliders" of this art, once one thought of using it. Nevertheless the evidence shows that its choice was not at once apparent. Aronson in his French patent, 442,132 of 1912, provided a lock for a "zipper" fastener; he chose something wholly different from the cam lock, though that had been well known long before. Binns in 1922, No. 1,506,286, tried again, and...