Alberger Gas Engine Co. v. Ross Heater & Manufacturing Co., Inc.
| Decision Date | 28 August 1922 |
| Parties | ALBERGER GAS ENGINE CO. v. ROSS HEATER & MFG. CO., Inc., et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of New York |
John S Powers, of Buffalo, N.Y., for plaintiff.
J William Ellis, of Buffalo, N.Y., for defendants.
In this case infringement is charged of complainant's reissue patent No. 14,906, granted July 6, 1920, to John A. Bogart on application filed May 20, 1920, for an improvement in expansion joints, pursuant to original patent No. 1,319,457 of October 21, 1919, on application dated September 3, 1915. Defendants in answer challenge the validity of the reissue, deny infringement, and counterclaim that complainant infringes claims 1 and 2 of their patent No. 1,336,924, for expansion joint, of April 13, 1920, on application of March 10, 1915, which they say was a continuation of an original application filed by Richard Ruppel on February 8, 1913. Complainant maintains that Ruppel's original application was abandoned, and that after an interference in the Patent Office between the respective pending applications, wherein priority of invention was awarded to Bogart, Ruppel, the defeated party, then ex parte presented broader claims in a second application for patent, which were erroneously allowed, than were warranted by the interference proceedings. It will be convenient to treat of the two causes separately: First, as to the validity and infringement of complainant's patent by defendants; and, second, as to defendants' patent and their counterclaim.
Expansion joints or pipe couplings are commonly used in connection with steam pipes, water pipes, and the like, and are placed at intervals in the line of pipe, so as to allow axial movement of the adjoining sections. They were improvements of the slip tube joints, which were in general use long before the conception of either complainant's Bogart or defendant's Ruppel patent. The patentee, Bogart, by his invention, designed to improve expansion joints by supplying a support of the joint and pipe to secure in the main easy and quick adjustability of the packing without dissembling the parts of the expansion joint. The specification states the object of the patent as follows:
'Prevention of pulling apart of the slip joint under conditions of extreme pipe contraction or improper assembling or adjustment of parts in setting up; the provision of a joint which may be adjusted readily in assembling, readily disassembled, repacked, etc., without any disturbance of the line piping.'
Slip joints of the old Crane type, which had become standard, often leaked, and the pipe became distorted, unless provision for guiding it just ahead of the joint was made. The distortion of the line distorted the slip collar of the joint and rendered it practically inoperative. Variations in the length of the pipe often resulted from changes in the temperature and from pressure of the fluids, gases, or steam conveyed, and hence it was necessary to provide for free expansion and contraction of the piping. In the old slip joints packing would often become impaired, due to the latent stresses to which the pipe was subjected, with the result that in a very short time the pipe would leak, and thus its utility became impaired. But it is not claimed by either of the patentees herein that they were the first to guide or support the old slip joint, for the prior patents to Pearce and to Tyler show such structures, and, though they were improvements, they did not wholly remove the difficulties of which the skilled workmen complained.
Complainant and defendants each claim that their respective adaptations and details of construction overcame the difficulties. The patentee, Bogart, describes and claims a quick external adjustability of the packing, as distinguished from one necessitating removing bolts and nuts or parts from within an open guide sleeve, such as in Ruppel's early disclosure. He says that by the guide sleeve of his patent he obtains a ready access to the nuts and bolts of the packing gland, thus affording convenient and quick access to the gland and replacement of packing, without disconnecting or displacing any other parts, and, furthermore, that by his stop means the pulling apart of the joint by undue contraction or expansion is prevented. His expansion joint is differentiable from the prior unguided joints by a guide sleeve separately attached to the casing, in combination with the packing gland means for external adjustment of the gland, a proper alignment, and a better longitudinal movement of the pipe in its expansion or contraction. The specification states:
'Since the guide sleeve 12, except for the improvement now stated, would, if made of imperforate construction, as shown and preferred, so inclose the gland bolts that the guide sleeve would have to be removed to adjust the gland, and since such removal not only would make the adjustment more laborious, but would necessitate such adjustment at the time when the support of the guide sleeve was removed, so that the adjustment might occur with the parts out of perfect alignment, I provide the main body 7 with the offsets 13, which are bored to receive the gland bolts 14, which have their nuts abutting these offsets, and thus outside the guide sleeve, so that the packing may be adjusted by the gland at any time without removal of the guide sleeve and while the parts are held by the guide sleeve in perfect alignment.' This is well explained by expert witness Dorsey, who testified that by tightening the nuts abutting the offsets the gland is drawn against the packing, and the packing is tightened or adjusted; the parts meanwhile being held in alignment.
The patent has eight claims, of which 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, and 7 are involved herein. Claims 1 and 2 of the original patent, corresponding exactly to claims 1 and 2, of the reissue were in interference with Ruppel's second application--the application for the patent subsequently granted to him after amendments were inserted, and claimed to be infringed by complainant. Claim 1 of the reissue, which is typical of claims 2, 4, and 5, reads as follows:
The element of a guide sleeve arranged to form a protective chamber clearly refers to a construction with a closed sleeve to protect the joint, in contradistinction to one that is open, and through which the gland bolts are manipulated. The original specification, page 2, lines 5 to 21, and the statement that the patentee does not limit himself to the specific construction, negatives, I think, a limitation of the original claims to an absolutely closed sleeve or one that is imperforate; nor, indeed, does the prior art demand a narrow scope, or one that would serve to exclude an obvious evasion. It was not necessary to have an imperforate guide sleeve to attain the object of the invention. In the argument submitted to the Court of Appeals for the the District of Columbia in the interference proceeding there were statements to the effect that the closed cylindrical sleeve of the original patent was of the essence thereof; but in my opinion no such interpretation was in the minds of the Patent Office officials who distinguished the construction from Ruppel's 1913 disclosure, and they did not expressly limit the guide sleeve to a precise form. The decisions with which I am in agreement emphasize that in Bogart's construction a closed cylindrical sleeve is permitted (not required), while in Ruppel's disclosure an open or cage-like or guide sleeve to reach the nuts and bolts of the gland to obtain operativeness was absolutely necessary. No such necessity exists in Bogart's device. It was...
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