Barber v. Otis Motor Sales Co.

• Decision Date: 20 December 1916
• Docket Number: 83.
• Citation: Barber v. Otis Motor Sales Co., 240 F. 723 (2nd Cir. 1916)
• Parties: BARBER v. OTIS MOTOR SALES CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

240 F. 723

BARBER v. OTIS MOTOR SALES CO.

No. 83.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

December 20, 1916

On Petition for Rehearing, February 7, 1917.

Coudert Brothers, of New York City (R. A. Parker, of New York City of counsel), for appellant.

Fred Francis Weiss, of New York City (Samuel E. Darby, of New York City, of counsel), for appellee.

Before COXE, WARD, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

ROGERS Circuit Judge.

This action is brought by the plaintiff, who alleges the infringement of patent No. 781,802, which was issued to him by the United States Patent Office on February 7, 1905.

The complainant's structure and the defendant's structure represent internal combustion engines. Combustible material in the form of a gas or vapor mingled with air is drawn through a valve into the working cylinder which carries the piston and is there burned. The gases are thereby expanded by heat and press upon the piston to produce motion and power.

At the time complainant took out his patent, explosive engines were not new, and valves and valve gear were not new. The inlet and exhaust passages and their mode of operation were old. The patent concedes this and claims an improvement. In his specification the patentee declared that:

'The object of my invention is to provide a motor engine of the explosion-vapor type of a simple and cheap form of construction, so made that the inlet and exhaust valves thereof may be quickly and easily removed from the body of the motor without disturbance of the other parts, and quickly cleaned, adjusted, or renewed, as occasion may require, and returned to position, and also to provide motors of such type with a combined electric circuit making and breaking and speed-regulating device of improved form.'

He described his invention as follows:

'To such ends my invention consists, in substance, of a cylinder, a piston reciprocating in the cylinder, a crank shaft in actuative connection with the cylinder by means of a connecting rod, an explosion chamber adjacent to the cylinder in communication with inlet and exhaust passages, an exhaust-valve plug located in the exhaust passage, a normally spring-closed exhaust valve carried by the exhaust-valve plug, a gear wheel carried by the crank shaft, a combined gearing and a cam wheel rigidly mounted upon an idler shaft meshing with a wheel carried by the crank shaft, and a rod reciprocating in a slip journal actuated by the cam so as to open the exhaust valve, such rod being adapted by rotation upon its axis to be thrown out of engagement with the rod of the exhaust valve, a contact wheel rigidly secured upon the outer end of the idler shaft carrying combined spur gear and cam wheel, a plate of insulating material vibratorily mounted adjacent to the contact wheel, a spring contact carried by such insulating plate in electrical connection with one terminal of a sparking plug, the sparking point of which is located in the chamber of the motor, the other sparking point of which plug is in connection by way of the motor frame with the contact wheel carried by the idler shaft by way of a source of electric energy, means for vibrating the insulated disk or plate so as to change the point of contact as the idler shaft is rotated, an inlet valve bushing adapted to be secured in the casing of the explosion chamber, so as to be in communication therewith with the atmosphere and with the explosive vapor supply source, and an inlet-valve plug carrying a normally closed inlet-valve adapted to inclose the inlet bushing, although it is not to be understood that my invention is limited to a device comprising at once all of the devices and parts before mentioned as the same consists of the construction of certain devices and parts and the construction, combination and arrangement of certain devices and parts, all as hereinafter more particularly set forth in the description and pointed out in the claims.'

That which constitutes his invention is the provision of a combination of elements in a valve structure for motor engines which permits the ready and easy removability of the valve units, with the valves, for inspection, cleaning, repair, or replacement, without requiring the disconnection of supply or exhaust pipes, or other parts, and without disconnecting or removing the cam actuated valve operating rod from its support, or interfering with or disturbing the timing mechanism or other parts or disassembling the valve unit.

There are 13 claims in the patent, but of these only claims 8 and 9 are involved in this suit.

Claim 8 reads as follows:

'In an explosion motor, the combination with an explosion chamber having a T-shaped gas passage the main central or stem portion of which forms the explosive vapor inlet, of a valve-seat ring provided with gas passages located in the end of the head portion of the T-passage adjacent to the explosion chamber, a puppet valve carried by the valve-seat ring opening toward the explosion chamber, a spring normally keeping the valve in the closed position, and a screw plug provided with a perforate peripheral wall and a closed outer and an open inner end closing the outer or air end of the head portion of the T-shaped passage and holding the valve-seat ring in position thereof, through the perforations in the wall of which the explosive vapor passes from the main or stem portion of the T to the valve at the open end of such plug, substantially as shown and described.'

The above claim deals mainly with the inlet and inlet-valve construction.

Claim 9 reads as follows:

'In an explosion motor, the combination with an explosion chamber having a T-shaped gas passage the main central or stem portion of which forms the exhaust orifice of the explosion chamber of a screw plug closed at the outer end, open at the inner end and having a perforated peripheral wall so as to give free communication between the central hollow thereof and the main stem or central passage and the explosion chamber located in the head portion of the T-shaped passage, a puppet valve the stem of which projects outward through the head of the plug seated upon the inner end of the plug so as to cut off communication between the main stem portion of the T-passage and the explosion chamber except when the same is forced away from the seat and toward the explosion chamber, a spring for normally keeping the valve in the closed position and means for forcing the valve stem inward so as to open the valve actuated by the motor and adapted to be removed from contact with the valve stem without removal from the support thereof so as to permit of removal of the plug and valve by the unscrewing of the plug, substantially as shown and described.'

The above claim deals with the plug and valve and of their removal by the unscrewing of the plug.

The defendant in its answer denied the validity of the patent and that the patentee was the original and first inventor of the improvements for which the patent issued. It also alleged:

'That the various asserted combinations in claims thereof of said patent are not for valid combinations, for the reason that the various elements thereof are all old and but perform their own

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