Anraku v. General Electric Co.

Decision Date24 February 1936
Docket NumberNo. 7959,7960.,7959
Citation80 F.2d 958
PartiesANRAKU v. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. PACIFIC IMPORTING CO. et al. v. SAME.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

J. Calvin Brown and Charles C. Montgomery, both of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellants.

Charles Neave and Hubert Howson, both of New York City, and Leonard S. Lyon, of Los Angeles, Cal., and John H. Anderson, of New York City, for appellee.

Before WILBUR, DENMAN, and HANEY, Circuit Judges.

HANEY, Circuit Judge.

From decrees ordering injunctions to be issued perpetually restraining the infringement of three claims of a patent owned by appellee, General Electric Company, by defendants in three suits in their sale of incandescent electric lamps, and ordering an accounting, the defendants in two of the suits only have appealed. All three cases were by stipulation tried together before a special master appointed by the court below, and the two cases in which appeals have been taken were presented to this court together.

The special master heard the testimony and reported his findings and conclusions. The special master found that appellee's patent has been infringed, and the trial court overruled the exceptions to the findings, adopted them, and entered the decrees accordingly.

The history and problems of the development of the filament in incandescent electric lamps up to the time of the Pacz patent, which is owned by appellee, and is the one at issue here, are set out in the following findings of the special master:

"The subject matter of the suit involves the filament of the well known incandescent electric lamp. The pertinent history of the incandescent lamp began some fifty years ago when Edison brought out the first commercially successful lamp. The Edison lamp with a carbon filament remained the standard of the industry until the availability of tungsten as a filamentary material was disclosed by the invention of Just and Hanaman in 1906. The first tungsten filaments were of the squirted or pressed type. Tungsten powder was combined with a binding material in a plastic mass and then squirted under pressure through a die to a fine thread, after which it was dried and sintered to form a filament of substantially pure tungsten. These threads were formed in V-shaped segments and each segment was separately welded to anchoring means which were a part of a framework within the lamp bulb. * * * Inasmuch as tungsten offers less resistance to the passage of electric current than carbon, it was necessary to make the filaments of a smaller diameter and greater length than a carbon filament designed for the same use. Tungsten had an advantage over carbon as a filamentary material in that it made a much more efficient lamp, giving more light of superior spectral quality for the amount of current consumed.

"The disadvantages involved in the use of tungsten came from the fact that the filaments were extremely brittle and failure from breakage was common. Squirted or pressed tungsten filaments were used until Dr. William D. Coolidge developed a process for the manufacture of ductile tungsten. The Coolidge filament was a drawn wire which could be made in any desired length and readily draped over the anchors within the lamp. * * *

"One of the problems involved in the development of tungsten filament was caused by the phenomenon known as `offsetting.' It was noted that if the grains of tungsten which made up the filament were so large in size as to entirely occupy a cross section of the wire, grain boundaries would be formed which were substantially perpendicular to the axis of the filament. When heated to incandescence movement would occur at these boundaries * * * Coolidge in his Patent, * * * offered a remedy for offsetting. During the preparation of the tungsten ingot from which the filament was to be drawn he introduced a small percentage of thoria. The presence of thoria had the effect of retarding grain growth so that the resulting filament was made up of very fine grains of tungsten, none of which were sufficiently large to extend across the diameter of the wire. * * * In such a filament offsetting is eliminated.

"After the development of thoriated filament, the gas filled lamp using a coiled filament was invented by Dr. Langmuir of the General Electric Company. The circulation of gas by convection in the Langmuir lamp caused an increased loss of heat, thereby lowering the efficiency of the lamp. To minimize this loss Langmuir used a tightly coiled filament so as to confine the heated portion of the lamp to as small an area as possible. At this point in the development of the art the phenomenon of sagging became a serious problem. The thoriated filament of Coolidge, when heated to incandescence tended to elongate. In a coiled filament this resulted in opening up the coils with an increased loss of heat by convection. The only remedy was to provide a large number of supports which reduced but did not eliminate sagging of the filament. This was the state of the practical art at the time of Pacz's disclosure." * * * The object of the Pacz invention is shown in his specification as follows: "The object of my invention is to produce tungsten metal which will retain to a much higher degree than heretofore its original properties after being subjected to high temperature. In the case of incandescent lamp filaments, the high temperatures at which they are run have caused them to elongate and sag between their supports. This is especially noticeable in coiled filaments, and in gas filled lamps this tends to reduce the efficiency of the lamp on account of the increased cooling effect on the filament. By means of my invention the sagging is substantially eliminated and `offsetting' of the filament is substantially prevented, during a normal or commercially useful life of the lamp."

The Pacz patent covered both the process of manufacture and the product of the process. Defendants imported from Japan and sold here lamps and the filaments contained in them which were manufactured in Japan. The process by which the lamps were manufactured is not disclosed by the evidence. Since the process of manufacture was not used in this country, appellee was unable to show infringement in that respect, but limited its contention of infringement to the product of the process. Claims 25, 26, and 27 are in issue here. Claim 25 is: "25. A filament for electric incandescent lamps or other devices, composed substantially of tungsten and made up mainly of a number of comparatively large grains of such size and contour as to prevent substantial sagging and offsetting during a normal or commercially useful life for such a lamp or other device." Claim 26 differs only in that it specifies that the filament is a "drawn" filament. Claim 27 differs from claim 25 in specifying that the filament is "composed of tungsten containing less than three-fourths of one percent of non-metallic material."

Appellants urge that there was no infringement by defendants because, first, the claims in issue are void; and, second, lack of proof of infringement.

We have heretofore said that the findings of the special master in such cases are entitled to great weight (Waxham v. Smith, 70 F.(2d) 457), and that we will not weigh the evidence where there is some substantial evidence to support such findings (Stoody Co. v. Mills Alloys, 67 F.(2d) 807).

Validity of the Claims.

In the case last cited 67 F.(2d) 807, page 809 it is said:

"In its brief, the appellant * * * says: `The general rule is that a patent is presumptively valid. This presumption arises from the grant of the patent by the Patent Office after the application has been examined thoroughly by the Examiner.'

"The foregoing excerpt unquestionably correctly states both the rule of law and the reason therefor."

With these principles in mind, we examine the specific points relied on by appellant and alleged to show that the claims are invalid.

1. It is contended that the "claims" are void because "the objects" of the Pacz application "are not those of the claims"; that "the object of that application is the purification of the tungsten, not the production of tungsten grains of any relative size or of any characteristic contour." Assuming, without determining that the claims must conform to the purpose as stated, appellants are in error in this contention for the reason that they assume the purpose of the application to be the purification of tungsten. This assumption is based on the various statements in the specification mentioning that the tungsten by the Pacz process "will retain to a much higher degree than heretofore its original properties." The specification also contains such words as "to accomplish the purification," the "purifying material," "purifying agent," and it is said "This method is desirable in that certain basic impurities are thus eliminated at the beginning."

The special master found as follows: "* * * In view of the evidence, nothing is found that tends to prove that the applicant did not attempt to fully describe his invention or that he attempted to cover more than was necessary. * * *"

There is substantial evidence to support this finding. The object of the invention, quoted above, is to substantially eliminate offsetting and to substantially prevent sagging in a tungsten filament. These purposes were accomplished by his invention. In the application, Pacz stated: "In the preferred form of my invention I bring into intimate association with tungsten a material which will have the desired influence upon the grain growth of the metal. * * *" And thereafter briefly describes his method, and then states:

"Considering my invention from the physical standpoint, the presence of the material has an influence on the grain growth of the metal. When the metal reaches the temperature at which extensive grain growth would ordinarily take place, the presence of this material intimately...

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13 cases
  • United States v. General Electric Co.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey
    • 4 Abril 1949
    ...expiring March 21, 1939, covered the so-called "sagless" tungsten filament. Certain claims to it were held valid in Anraku v. General Electric Co., 9 Cir., 80 F.2d 958, and other claims were eventually held invalid in General Electric Co. v. Wabash Appliance Corporation, 304 U.S. 364, 58 S.......
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    ...91 F.2d 904. This decision conflicted with that handed down by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Anraku v. General Electric Co., 80 F.2d 958, which held the same claims valid and infringed. To resolve the conflict, this Court granted certiorari. 302 U.S. 676, 58 S.Ct. 143,......
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    ...of prior inventions in the same science. Anraku v. General Electric Co. (Pacific Importing Co. et al. v. General Electric Co.), 9 Cir., 80 F.2d 958. In an interesting case disposed of by Judge McCormick, of American Bitumuls Co. v. Union Oil Co. of California, D. C., 24 F.Supp. 795, 802, an......
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1 books & journal articles
  • The Rosetta Stone for the doctrine of means-plus-function patent claims.
    • United States
    • Rutgers Computer & Technology Law Journal Vol. 23 No. 2, June 1997
    • 22 Junio 1997
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