American Laundry Mach. Co. v. Strike
| Decision Date | 10 April 1939 |
| Docket Number | 1762.,No. 1761,1761 |
| Parties | AMERICAN LAUNDRY MACH. CO. v. STRIKE. STRIKE v. AMERICAN LAUNDRY MACH. CO. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
Drury W. Cooper, of New York City (Elbert L. Hyde and Frank R. Higley, both of Cleveland, Ohio, on the brief), for the American Laundry Mach. Co.
Carlos G. Stratton, of Huntington Park, Cal. (N. J. Cotro-Manes, of Salt Lake City, Utah, on the brief), for Louis N. Strike.
Before PHILLIPS, BRATTON, and WILLIAMS, Circuit Judges.
This is a suit for alleged infringement of combination patent No. 2,007,607 relating to improvements in scissors type pressing machines commonly used industrially in laundries for ironing purposes and in dry cleaning establishments for pressing purposes. George W. Johnson was the inventor. Plaintiff owns the patent by assignment from him. Claims 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8 are in issue. They are set forth in the margin.1 The defenses are invalidity and non-infringement. The court found that the patent should be limited to a spiral or helical spring snap-acting means for urging the two handles from intermediate to inoperative position; that as thus limited the claims were valid; that the first type of machines manufactured and sold by defendant embodied such spring means and infringed; but that the type thereafter manufactured and sold failed to employ any such member and therefore did not infringe. The uncontroverted evidence disclosed that defendant manufactured a third type, but no findings were made in respect of it. Defendant was enjoined from the further manufacture and sale of the first type of machines or any other type containing a spiral or helical spring member tending to move the manuals from intermediate to inoperative position. Both parties appealed from the respective parts of the decree deemed to be adverse.
The apparatus weighs about one thousand pounds. It has a substantial frame on which a bed or buck is mounted. A heated iron member called the head is mounted on a two-arm pivoted lever above the bed. The pivoted arm swings up and down to bring the head into and out of ironing or pressing engagement with the work arranged by the operator on the bed to be ironed or pressed. The mechanism for the head includes an air pressure cylinder, piston, piston rod, and toggle links which connect the piston rod to the rear arm of the lever which supports the head. These are so arranged that when air pressure is admitted into the cylinder the piston rod is moved rearward which causes the lever to swing and thus bring the head downward into heavy pressure engagement with the work on the bed. The two manuals are each connected with a valve mechanism or assembly. The duplex valves are connected in series in such manner that if either is closed no fluid pressure will flow through the pipe to the cylinder. The pipe is connected with the outlet of one of the valves; the inlet to that valve is connected with the outlet to the other by means of a pipe; and the inlet to the latter valve is connected to a suitable source of supply of fluid pressure by means of a pipe. When the manuals are moved downwardly from an inoperative to approximately or substantially intermediate position the intake valves are opened and air pressure is admitted through a connected pipe arrangement into the cylinder which moves the piston rod rearward and causes the rear arm of the lever to swing and bring the head into engagement with the work on the bed. But if the hand is taken from either manual the exhaust valve is opened, the air pressure is released in the operating cylinder, and the head moves upward and out of engagement with the bed. Stops in the form of pivoted bars are mounted in an upright position on a rock shaft underneath the manuals to prevent the manuals from being moved below their intermediate position until the head and bed are in substantial engagement. When the manuals come into engagement with the stops they cannot be moved further downward until the stops are moved out of the path of their travel. A pull rod connected with the stops extends through a collar positioned on the lever which supports the head. It has an ear beyond the collar. When air is admitted into the cylinder and the piston moves rearward causing the lever with its toggle-link connections to assume a substantially straight position, the ear on the pull rod comes into engagement with the collar on the lever, the stops are moved out of the path of the manuals, and the manuals can then be further depressed or advanced into a full operated position. The operator can feel the stops being moved out of the path of the manuals and that is called a tell-tale.
The novelty which plaintiff contends the patent brought into the art is a two-stage movement of the manuals, which (1) will cause either or both manuals to fly upward into inoperative position if released before the manuals reach the intermediate position and thus bring the head out of engagement with the bed, and (2) will depress the manuals into full operated or so-called locked position if they are released after passing the intermediate line and hold them in that position until raised by the operator. It is asserted that the merit in the invention in practical operation lies in affording the operator the option or choice of holding the manuals in intermediate position or taking the hands off them after they have passed that line and permitting the control means to depress them to a fully operated position and hold them there until the operator elects to raise them. It is said that this arrangement makes it possible for one operator to operate two or three machines, that is to say while one is in locked position the operator may turn and give attention to a second or third. It is also said that the control means provide safety against the danger of injury to the hands and arms of the operator. That is accomplished by the control means making it necessary for the operator to keep both hands on the manuals until they are moved from inoperative to intermediate position and the head is brought into such substantial engagement with the bed that when either or both hands are removed from the manuals the close proximity of the head to the bed makes it impossible to place the hand between the two and thus be crushed or burned.
One question argued is whether the patent should be limited to an over-center spiral or helical spring member for operating the manuals. Stated generally, the original claims included power means for moving the head and bed into and out of engagement, control means for such power means including spaced controls actuatable from normal inoperative position to operative position and then to locked operative position, and means governed by the relative position of the head and bed for preventing actuation of such control means to locked and operated position. Patents issued to Benjamin, Daly, Davis, Ledbetter, Maury, and others were cited as references. All claims were rejected as not being patentable over either Davis, Daly or Maury; and they were rejected on the further ground of being merely functional. The applicant then cancelled all claims and submitted new ones which provided for valve operated control means for such power means including spaced controls actuatable from normal inoperative to an intermediate operative position wherein such power means would be energized to cause...
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