Bank v. Rauland Corporation, 8544.
| Decision Date | 20 December 1944 |
| Docket Number | No. 8544.,8544. |
| Citation | 146 F.2d 19 |
| Parties | BANK v. RAULAND CORPORATION et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
H. Howard Jonesi and Casper W. Ooms, both of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
Paul Kolisch, of New York City, and J. Bernard Thiess, of Chicago, Ill., for appellee.
Before SPARKS, MAJOR, and KERNER, Circuit Judges.
The complaint charged the defendants with infringement of United States patent No. 1,922,415 to Bank, issued August 15, 1933, on an application filed March 25, 1929. The defendant corporation was charged as a direct infringer, and Rauland, the general manager of that corporation, was charged as an aider, abetter and contributor thereto. The defendants denied infringement, and by counterclaim sought a decree declaring the claims invalid. The District Court found the facts specially and stated its conclusions of law thereon, holding each claim invalid and not infringed. Judgment was rendered accordingly and the complaint was dismissed for want of equity, and from that decree this appeal is prosecuted.
The patent relates to electrical-including radio-apparatus, otherwise commercially known as a two-way loud speaking inter-communication system. Only three claims were allowed and they are all relied upon. As the court held each claim invalid for lack of the required statutory specification, we set them forth in the margin.1
This is a combination patent and all the elements were old in the art. The object of the invention is to provide a system in which a plurality of loud speaking reproducers are used at respective stations, and are so united that any one may be selectively used either as a transmitter or a reproducer. The structure consists of two or more loud speaking reproducers, an amplification apparatus, a transformer of predetermined capacity in an amplification stage, and a multipole switch.
The reproducer consists of an electrical device which can generate electrical energy, which device is connected to a diaphragm. When used as a transmitter to speak into, it then is a generator of electrical waves. When used as a loud speaking receiver, it is a generator of sound waves. When used as a transmitter, its function is to convert the sound waves originated when one talks, into electrical energy, which sound waves can be guided as desired over the connecting wires through the amplifier to the reproducer used as a loud speaking receiver, where electrical energy causes its diaphragm to vibrate and there is thus translated into amplified sound waves similar in nature to those which are put into the reproducer when used as a transmitter. When the reproducer previously used as a loud speaking receiver is converted to be used as a transmitter, the same cycle of events takes place. Sound waves impressed on this transmitting reproducer are converted into electrical energy which travels over the wires to the loud speaking receiver at the other end of the line, which in turn converts the electrical energy back into sound.
When the reproducer is used as a transmitter, the electrical energy generated by the actuation of the electrical device is so slight that it is necessary to magnify it so that it can have sufficient power to be converted into audible sound by an equivalent reproducer used as a receiver at the other end of the circuit. To accomplish this a two or three stage amplifier is necessary.
The transmitting means is always connected to the input of the amplifier. The electrical energy flows one way from the transmitting device to and through the input of the amplifier, then to and through the loud speaking reproducers used as receivers. When it is desired to change the function of the transmitting reproducer in the circuit to that of a receiver and the receiving reproducer to that of a transmitter, the connections of these reproducers are changed so that the transmitter which was previously connected to the input of the amplifier is changed over to be connected to the output thereof, and the receiver which was previously connected to the output is at the same time changed over to be connected to the input. This change-over is accomplished by means of a non-capacity pole changer switch in circuit with the apparatus and the reproducers.
Prior to 1927 loud speakers were generally designed to function only as loud speaking receivers. When thus used the mass movement of the diaphragm was satisfactory when driven by a power from an outside source, but Bank disclosed that this was not true when the loud speaker receiver was used as a transmitter, because of the extraneous noise resulting from the outside current. He taught that when used as a transmitter the energy thereby generated is so slight and minute that it is necessary for it to reach the first tube of the amplifier with a minimum of loss; that additional energy which he calls uncontrolled energy, created by virtue of the capacity within the components of his apparatus, and the capacity relationship between the elements of the components, renders the slight fluctuations of current created by the reproducer when used as a transmitter insufficient to cause the reproduction of intelligible sound in another reproducer used as a receiver in the circuit. He further disclosed that indeterminate inductances and more particularly capacities, prevalent in the input transformer and other transformers in the circuit, created a bypass which interfered with the electrical energy generated by the transmitting reproducer and prevented the desirable energy from reaching the first vacuum tube in the amplifier. In consideration of these facts Bank says it is desirable that no outside source of power be used, but that the reproducer generate its own electrical energy, from which only the desired energy is allowed to reach the first vacuum tube, with all undesirable energies eliminated. Bank claims to have accomplished this by the use of a transformer provided with certain predetermined capacity characteristics.
In furtherance of Bank's conception it was necessary to permit the selective use of one reproducer to transmit to, as well as receive from, another reproducer in the same circuit. It was well known with respect to vacuum tube phenomena that in order to provide an efficient and stable amplification apparatus there should be an absence of undesirable oscillations in the amplifier, because their presence would result in feed-back, howls, squeals, distortion and the like. This was formerly avoided by placing the input and output circuits as far from each other as was mechanically practical, in order that each might be electrically isolated from the other. However, Bank, in order to change the connections of the reproducers from the input of the amplifier to its output, and vice versa, requires a switch which places the input and output in very close physical relation to each other, yet each is electrically isolated from the other. He accomplishes this result by reducing the capacity between the primary and secondary of the input transformer and other transformers in the circuit, which enables the desirable slight energy generated by the transmitter to reach the first vacuum tube in the circuit, and coupled with a low capacity switch and other transformers in the circuit with predetermined capacities, maintains a proper balance between the input and output circuits, thereby permitting the efficient operation of the reproducer as a transmitter.
Plaintiff contends that the findings of the court, numbered 13 to 19, are contrary to the evidence and the law applicable thereto. Those findings in substance state that the claims of the patent do not satisfy the requirements of the pertinent statute, 35 U.S.C.A. § 33, in that the description is not in such full, clear, concise and exact terms as to enable one skilled in the art to make and use the same, and that the claims do not particularly point out and distinctly claim the alleged invention. In this respect the court in substance found that one skilled in the art could not, without extensive experimentation, construct Bank's system, nor make it function in the manner described in the patent, because no quantitative values are given for the switches, the transformers and the vacuum tubes, nor are standards disclosed by which one could gauge the adjectives constituting the sole definitions in the patent. Specifically it referred to the terms predetermined capacity, minimum amplification, and the prevention or reduction of capacity built up in the switch and circuit.
Plaintiff tells us that it is necessary to predetermine all of the inter-related components, and that their efficiency depends entirely upon the elimination of particular capacities and particular indefinite inductances, and other extraneous things which would prevent the apparatus from properly functioning. He further stated that each individual component would have to be properly measured or predetermined, and that in the year of his application he had no instruments with which to measure such capacities. His expert said that the capacities referred to in the patent would have to be determined very definitely, otherwise the system would howl. Neither plaintiff nor his patent give any quantitative values whatever, either absolute, approximate or relative, and both he and his expert admit that the only way one skilled in the art can successfully practice the disclosures of the patent is by the method of trial and error, and that the only test of successful construction is — does it work? In other words, if one not protected by the patent causes it to work, there is infringement, otherwise there is no infringement.
However, plaintiff says that the type of this invention includes elements of varying conditions depending upon the individual requirements of the system to be used, whether there will be two or more stations, more or less power output, or different distances required between the...
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