Trico Products Corporation v. DELMAN CORPORATION
| Decision Date | 11 May 1949 |
| Docket Number | 882.,Civ. No. 863 |
| Citation | 85 F. Supp. 393 |
| Parties | TRICO PRODUCTS CORPORATION v. DELMAN CORPORATION. TRICO PRODUCTS CORPORATION v. McGINN et ux. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Iowa |
Edwin T. Bean, Buffalo, N. Y., and M. K. Hobbs, Chicago Ill., Talbert Dick, Des Moines, Iowa, for plaintiff.
Charles F. Meroni (of the firm Charles W. Hills), Chicago, Ill., and Rudolph L. Lowell, Des Moines, Iowa, for defendants.
The questions presented in the two above actions, which were consolidated for trial, have the usual issues of validity of patents, infringement, and added thereto, the question of whether the plaintiff has violated the anti-trust laws of the Congress.
The actions were tried upon their merits at Des Moines, Iowa, from the 15th to the 19th day of March, 1949, were submitted and, by agreement, the parties have argued the questions in writing and the case has been finally submitted.
The patents declared upon are those of A. W. Becker, No. 1,949,098, and of E. C. Horton, No. 2,206,814. The attorneys have ably and exhaustively treated every phase of the questions presented.
Plaintiff claims its patents disclose new and important advancements in the art of cleaning windshields of automobiles from dirt and accumulations that interfere with the vision of the driver.
While the patent claims are very narrow in their advancement of that art, still it is apparent that both Horton and Becker made some changes and additions to known combinations and the defendants' attempts to evade the broad claims of the patents are subterfuges and with little merit. If the patents are valid, the infringement by the defendants is apparent — the Delman corporation direct and the defendants McGinns contributory.
Defendants' main claim for noninfringement is that the plaintiff's claims were limited by the Patent Office and accepted by the plaintiff, or its assignors, to a localized flow of liquid on the windshield. That their device does not thus localize the flow of liquid upon the windshield but spreads and deploys the liquid over the entire surface of the windshield and beyond the arc made by a windshield wiper.
It may be that the stream of liquid from defendants' device is not localized solely to the arc of the windshield wiper, but it is also apparent that at least a part of its flow is so localized. Its very purpose is to place the liquid so it can be spread by the windshield wiper.
The patents declared upon are for combinations of old and very well-known elements, and the purpose and object to be attained apparently suggested the use of combinations easily procured and assembled.
Section 31, Title 35 U.S.C.A., provides as follows: "Any person who has invented or discovered any new and useful art, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvements thereof * * * may * * * obtain a patent therefor."
Plaintiff has been for sometime in the business of manufacturing and selling automobile accessories, and the management was farsighted enough to preceive a demand for a windshield cleaning device to relieve motorists in wet weather from an impairment of vision when mud and slush were splashed upon the windshield. They evidently discovered the patent rights of A. W. Becker and purchased from him his patent which they hoped would be a basic or prime patent covering the subject. However, they knew it was too crude to satisfy the commercial requirements of the traveling public, so they directed their engineer, Mr. E. C. Horton, to get up a combination that would meet the demand.
The purpose was to get liquids in sufficient amounts and at proper places to enable the windshield wiper to clear the glass when obscured by foreign substances. Mr. Horton at that time was chief engineer of the Trico Products Corporation and had been its engineer since 1922. He testified that he produced devices for the company which were patented and that when so patented they became the property of the plaintiff company. It would appear from his evidence that, given the problem desired to be solved, drawings were first made by Mr. C.J. Allaart, who was the designing and experimental draftsman of the plaintiff company. After the drawings were made, the chief engineer set up in his shop a department to work on the problem and kept a work sheet of the time and men employed and the expense required. They did develop a windshield cleaner that has since attained remarkable sales success, but whether that success was on account of the design as thus prepared and used for sale by the plaintiff company or because of the public demand for such a product is speculative.
The device, good and suitable as it developed, is the work of a skilled engineer and mechanic, working at his trade.
Mr. Horton, in his testimony at the trial taken by deposition, says that the three elements which he considered an advancement of any art at that time were: "First, the use of hydrostatic pressure to forcibly throw a stream into the path of the wiper on to the glass; second, the location of the nozzle at a point where the direction of the stream would be substantially in the direction of the air flow surrounding a moving automobile; third, the introduction of a predetermined time or amount of squirt so that it would clear itself, turn itself off automatically and thereby relieve the driver of all attention except that of setting the device into motion."
No particular means of supplying the necessary power is claimed. And, as far as power is concerned in the art, the Becker patent suggests that power could be used; and the Italian patent, No. 321,596, shows not only the nozzle on the outside and at the base of the windshield, but squirting water upward into the path of the wind-shield wiper.
Plaintiff claims this Italian patent had to be actually published prior to Horton to be effective, but I am not impressed with that argument.
The British patent, No. 241,381, issued October 22, 1925, clearly discloses the placing of the liquid at locations on the windshield as desired; and the McKee patent, No. 1,702,877, also shows the liquid to be deposited, independently of the wiper, positioned to discharge the liquid in the path of the windshield wiper.
Mr. Horton's second claim of the location of the nozzle at a place where the...
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Trico Products Corp. v. Delman Corporation
...treble damages, on the ground that the evidence in support of it was insufficient to show that the plaintiff had misused its patents. 85 F. Supp. 393. This appeal and cross-appeal The plaintiff contends, in effect, that it was entitled to an adjudication that the patents in suit were valid ......
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Sun Rubber Co. v. National Latex Products Co., Civ. A. No. 31211.
...1951. There can be no question that the Delacoste patent was effective in Italy on the date it was granted. In Trico Products Corp. v. Delman Corp., D.C., 85 F.Supp. 393, 394 the court "Plaintiff claims this Italian patent had to be actually published prior to Horton to be effective, but I ......