Universal Winding Co. v. Willimantic Linen Co.

• Decision Date: 27 July 1897
• Citation: 82 F. 228
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: UNIVERSAL WINDING CO. v. WILLIMANTIC LINEN CO.

82 F. 228

UNIVERSAL WINDING CO. v. WILLIMANTIC LINEN CO.

United States Circuit Court, D. Connecticut.

July 27, 1897

Dickerson & Brown, for complainant.

Mitchell Bartlett & Brownell, for defendant.

TOWNSEND District Judge.

Complaint herein, at final hearing on the usual bill and answer, prays for an injunction and accounting by reason of the alleged infringement of patents No. 480,157, for an apparatus for winding cops, No. 480,158, for a method of winding cops, both dated August 2, 1892, and of No. 486,745, for a cop, dated November 22, 1892, all of said patents having been issued to Joseph R. Leeson as assignee of Simon W. Wardell, Jr., and duly assigned to this complainant. A cop-- the subject-matter to which these patents relate-- consists generally of a ball or roll of thread or rope wound in helixes or spirals on a spindle. In most of the ordinary and earlier cops the successive coils of thread were irregularly would upon the spindle, without any attempt to arrange the threads parallel to each other. The alleged invention of the cop patent No 486,745 is therein stated by the patentee to consist in a 'cop wound * * * so as to have greater uniformity density, and compactness, and so as to facilitate the unwinding, and prevent tangling, and insuring other advantages. ' Before discussing the patents in suit, it will be necessary to make some general statements concerning the art. Irrespective of certain alleged anticipations, to be hereafter considered, there were found in the prior art various forms of cops, distinguished by differences in pitch or angle of the thread and the relations of the threads to each other. Certain of these winds are designated ball wind cross wind, surface wind, Z wind, spool wind, Spach wind, etc. It is unnecessary to state their distinguishing characteristics. A special form of wind of the prior art is known as the half wind or crescent wind. The wind of the patents in suit is known as the V wind or Wardwell wind. In each of these two winds the thread is ordinarily wound on a core, without any head at the ends, from one end of the core to the other in the direction of a helix or spiral, and is then so reversed as to form a knuckle or abrupt bend, and would in a reverse helix or spiral to that end of the core where the winding was started. In each the thread is again reversed to form another such knuckle, and, passing across the first helix, is wound in a second helix, parallel and generally close to the first. In each, complete parallel layers will thus be laid one above the other, forming a solid cylindrical cop alike throughout. The complainant differentiates the crescent wind as follows: (1) It is a modified form of ball wind. (2) It is not wound in spirals, but in the form of a semi-circle or semiellipse, and will therefore in its first courses slip towards the middle of the core, and therefore the successive threads may not lie parallel to each other. (3)The threads will never cross each other intermediate of the ends of the core, and hence do not interlock, and therefore the cop will not be cylindrical in form, and will easily lose its shape. (4) This wind is adapted only for winding extremely small cops. Whether the crescent wind is a modified ball wind is immaterial except in so far as under such designation complainant's expert includes it in the foregoing criticisms of ball winds in general. The criticisms of ball winds generally do not necessarily apply to the crescent wind. The essential feature of the Wardwell wind, as claimed by complainant, is that the wind is spiral in the sense that 'the thread turns more than half a revolution in extending from one end of the cop to the other' at such an angle when the complete spiral is laid-- that is, when the thread has been wound to the end of the cop and has returned-- the angle of delivery and to the end of the cop and has returned--the angle of delivery and return shall be such that the thread will remain where it is put. ' The distinguishing feature of the crescent wind, as claimed by complainant, is that the thread, although wound in substantially the same direction as in the Wardwell wind, is not spirally wound, because the angle is such that the thread turns only one-half a revolution in extending from one end of the cop to the other, and therefore 'the turns of the thread constitute substantially circles or rings at an angle to the axis of the holder or tube. ' This difference of angle is claimed as Wardwell's invention and as the basis of the alleged differences in results. The line between what is thus included within and excluded from the Wardwell invention may be shown by the following statements:

Complainant's expert Foster first says:

'I was wrong in stating that a complete revolution was necessary to lay such a spiral or helix as is required by the patent.'

Later he says:

'Q. Then, if I understand you, everything else being alike in machine, in wind and in cop, a spiral crossing in five-eights of a turn would not exclude the Leeson invention, a spiral crossing in four-eighths of a turn would exclude the Leeson invention, and as to a spiral crossing in nine-sixteenths of a turn you are somewhat in doubt? A. So far as I can tell without seeing the cop, a spiral crossing in five-eights would have reverse spirals interlocking between the ends, and would embody this feature of the Wardwell invention. I do not recognize that there would be a spiral at all at four-eighths of a turn, because that would be a one-half turn, winding what I have pointed out as a ball-wind cop. As regards a spiral of nine-sixteenths, if the thread was fine, and the cop relatively long, this would embody this feature of the Wardwell wind if it caused the reverse spirals to be interlocked between their ends.'

Wardwell himself, in the patents in suit, does not claim that any exact pitch or number of turns in the spiral constitutes his invention. On the contrary, he says, in No. 486,745:

'I make use of a tube of any suitable character, and I wind the thread, X, thereon, with any suitable number of turns or coils to the length of the tube.'

In No. 480,157 he says:

'As a result of this operation, the reversal of the movement of the guide takes place, not upon the completion of a rotation (or fraction or multiple of a rotation) of the holder, but after, and only after, the holder has reached the point in its revolution beyond that necessary to complete such movement, and beyond that point which it occupied at the time the guide was reversed upon its preceding reversal of movement, so that the thread held by the guide is not started on its return winding until it has been laid over onto the outer side of the previous coil.'

The crescent cops do not necessarily slip towards the middle of the core. Whether such a wind thus slips depends upon the angle at which it is wound, and the abruptness of the reversal, and may also depend upon whether the core is rough or smooth. The crescent cops, as originally wound, were small sewing-machine cops, and in then the thread did not cross intermediate the end of the core. This point will be discussed hereafter. Wardwell created the cop in the method and by the machine which are the subjects of the three patents in suit. Complainant claims that therein he first disclosed the angle at which threads could be so laid on a cylinder that they would lie parallel to, and generally in contact with, each other, without slipping, and would cross each other and interlock intermediate the ends, and the method and means for accomplishing said result, and that he was the first inventor thereof. Patent No. 480,157 covers Wardwell's machine for winding the cops of No. 486,745 by the method of No. 480,158. The claims alleged to be infringed are the following:

'(1) In a cop-winding machine, the combination, with a revolving holder for supporting the cop, and with a reciprocating thread guide supported to move in a course parallel to the axis of the cop, of mechanisms adapted to give the holder an increment of movement at each rotation, for the purposes set forth. (2) A machine for winding cops, provided with a holder for the cop, and a reciprocating guide for the thread supported to move parallel to the axis of the cop and outward as the cop increases in diameter, and means for turning the holder and for reciprocating the guide, and mechanisms for varying the relative movements of the holder and guide to insure an increment of movement to the holder at each rotation, whereby each reversal of the movement of the guide takes place after the holder has turned beyond the point of its revolution occupied at the moment of the preceding reversal of the movement of the guide, substantially as set forth. (3) A machine for winding cops, provided with a revolving holder for supporting the cops, and with a reciprocating thread-guide and means for varying the relative movements of the thread-holder and guide, constructed substantially as described, to secure each successive reversal of the movement of the guide at the outer end of the holder after, and only after, the holder in its rotation has reached a point beyond the point reached at the moment of the preceding reversal of the movement of the guide at such end substantially as set forth. (4) In a cop-winding machine, the combination of a guide and means for imparting to the same a progressive rotary movement at each rotation, substantially as set forth.'

The patented machine comprises a cop holder in the form of a cylinder, and a thread-guide operating close to said cylinder, and so arranged that as the cylinder rotates the thread-guide reciprocates in a line parallel to the axis of the cylinder, and so that, as the thread is brought to either end of the cop thus...