Bela Seating Company v. Poloron Products, Inc.

• Decision Date: 25 January 1971
• Docket Number: No. 17444.,17444.
• Citation: 438 F.2d 733
• Parties: BELA SEATING COMPANY, Inc., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. POLORON PRODUCTS, INC., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

438 F.2d 733 (1971)

BELA SEATING COMPANY, Inc., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. POLORON PRODUCTS, INC., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 17444.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

January 25, 1971.

Norman Lettvin, Jacques M. Dulin Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellant; Eugene E. Geoffrey, Jr., New York City, of counsel.

James W. Clement, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellee; Dressler, Goldsmith, Clement & Gordon, Chicago, Ill., of counsel.

Before KNOCH, Senior Circuit Judge, KILEY and FAIRCHILD, Circuit Judges.

KILEY, Circuit Judge.

This is a patent infringement suit, brought by Bela Seating Company, Inc. (Bela), with the customary defenses of invalidity and non-infringement filed by defendant Poloron Products, Inc. (Poloron). Poloron also filed a defense and a counter-claim both based upon alleged patent misuse in violation of antitrust laws. The district court concluded, 297 F.Supp. 489, that Poloron had infringed eleven of eighteen claims of Junkunc Patent No. 2,954,073 in suit.¹ Judgment was for Bela, with a grant of injunctive relief and an order for compensatory damages. The court dismissed Poloron's counterclaim on the merits. Poloron has appealed. We affirm.

The patent in suit covers an inverted "Y-frame"² folding "tablet arm" chair. The patent has all the elements of the ordinary folding chair plus a movable tablet arm for use in writing and in folding. The tablet arm, when not in use, moves sideways from its writing position in front of the chair and pivots downward into an out-of-the-way position next to the front leg of the chair. When the chair is folded, the seat of the chair is raised and the tablet arm moves downward to a fully closed "lowermost" position in front of the chair. In unfolding, the tablet arm is lifted upward to its writing position and the seat opens cooperatively. Thus in both the folding and unfolding operations, the tablet arm moves cooperatively with the seat of the chair. The chair is clearly important for use by institutions such as schools, hotels and clubs. The three figures below picture the chair in an unfolded position with the tablet arm moved away and downward from the seat (Figure 1), a side view of the chair completely unfolded with the tablet arm ready for use (Figure 2), and a front view of the completely closed folded position of the chair and tablet arm (Figure 3):

The district court found the patent valid, and that Poloron's accused chair read directly upon and infringed claims 1 through 6 and 14 of the Junkunc patent in suit; and that, under the doctrine of equivalency, Poloron infringed claims 7, 10, 12 and 15. Poloron does not directly challenge the conclusion of validity, but contends that the district court erred in finding infringement and also alleges several grounds on which the patent is said to be invalid and accordingly not entitled to patent monopoly protection. We shall treat seriatim the several grounds urged for invalidity.

I. VALIDITY.

The court did not err, as Poloron argues, in failing to consider the "two principal prior art references" Poloron relied upon, and accordingly in failing to determine the scope and content of the prior art as required by the Supreme Court in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17, 86 S.Ct. 684, 15 L.Ed.2d 545 (1965). The references are a prior art chair of Bela's (Bela 2070) and a 1952 catalog of Clarin Manufacturing Company, a competitor in the folding chair market, illustrating a Clarin chair. Both of these chairs were exhibits introduced into the record at the trial.

The record discloses however, that neither the Bela 2070 chair nor the Clarin 1952 catalog chair was relied upon by Poloron as its "principal prior art references." They were not among the prior art references included in its § 282 notice sent to Bela before trial. And at trial Poloron relied upon exhibits "4-A to -G" and "DX-10," none of which included either of the two references.

Poloron's own expert admitted that Bela's 2070 chair is similar to the Adler and Supita chairs³, which were specifically discussed in the district court's findings. And Clarin's catalog shows the same X-frame folding chair (in somewhat less detail) as that disclosed in the Clarin Patent No. 2,664,943,⁴ which also was specifically discussed in the findings. The court did not err in failing to discuss the Bela 2070 and Clarin catalog chairs, or in failing to apply the standards of John Deere Co.

We find no merit in Poloron's related contention that had the trial court considered the Bela 2070 and Clarin catalog chairs it would have found that these two chairs, taken together, had all the "advantages" the court found in the chair in suit and that three structural differences between the chair in suit and the two prior art chairs can be found in the other prior art references before the district court. Suffice to say with respect to the first contention, the chair in suit is novel because it combines all the "advantages" of the prior art chairs in a single product which is "new and unobvious."⁵ There is no claim that either of the two prior art chairs alone does so.

As to the second contention: the double pivot back support is not an element in the claims in suit and the releasable lock feature was held not to be infringed by the Poloron chair. The universal joint front support of the tablet arm is the main structural difference between this chair and the prior art, and this joint enables the tablet arm to move both cooperatively with, and independent of, the chair seat. Neither the Bela 2070 nor any prior art reference has the universal joint front support, and no prior art chair tablet arm is capable of both cooperative and independent movement.

The district court made extensive findings with respect to Moore patent No. 1,864,750. We are not persuaded by Poloron's specious argument that since there are clear differences between the Moore patent and the claim in suit the extensive findings of the trial court indicate that claims 1 and 3 of the patent in suit violate 35 U.S.C. § 112 by failing to "particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter" of the invention. The district court probably considered the extensive findings necessary because Poloron's chief reliance for invalidity was on the Moore patent. This is shown by the fact that over 100 pages of transcript were devoted to a discussion of this prior art.

Bela's expert Cowie testified at the trial on the accepted technical terminology in the claims in suit. Poloron argues that the district court erred in relying on Cowie's testimony and that accordingly its patent lawyer-expert's testimony is uncontroverted. We have read Cowie's testimony and see no reason to disagree with the trial court's evaluation of Cowie's description of the structure and operation of a relatively simple folding chair. The court found Cowie qualified to testify in "ordinary mechanical or technical terms." Furthermore we do not find in Cowie's testimony "admissions" making out a prima facie case of anticipation by Moore of each feature of claim 1. We reject therefore the argument that claim 1 must be overbroad in being identified with the Moore patent which is basically and distinctly different from the patent in suit.

We see no substance to Poloron's argument that the Bela specifications do not comply with the requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112 that they "set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention." We do not read the specifications, the way Poloron does, as requiring the unfolding of the chair in suit by using the seat as a "driver." The specifications describe the movement of the assembly so as to arrive at the cooperative effect. No clear mention is made in the specifications that the seat is to be used as the driver member and the tablet arm as the driven member in unfolding the chair from the completely folded position. Moreover, the testimony at trial shows that the claims and drawings in the patent in suit disclose — to one skilled in the art — that the chair could not possibly be opened from the folded position by pushing forward on the chair seat. There was also testimony that the normal and recognized method of opening chairs with cooperative movement is to pull up on the tablet arm. Based on this testimony, the trial court found that it could be clear to anyone skilled in the art that the chair cannot unfold by using the seat as a driver.

The challenges of Poloron are ineffective against the district court's decision of validity.

II. INFRINGEMENT

Poloron contends that the court erred in deciding that the accused chair infringed the patent in suit because three features of the Bela chair in suit are not found in the accused chair: (1) movement of the tablet arm and movement of the chair "to different positions simultaneously as a cooperative assembly;" (2) a "universal joint" as a support for the front end of the tablet arm, providing "universal pivotal movement" of the tablet arm with respect to the supporting link; (3) joint structure which "supports" the tablet arm and "maintains" the arm in position when it is in use. As to (1), Poloron argues that the claimed "movement" requires use of the seat as the driver and that this operation is missing in the accused chair. However, we have shown above that the claims do not require use of the seat as driver. The court did not err in finding that the cooperative movement referred to in the claims was infringed by the accused chair.⁶ With respect to (2), the patent in suit defines "universal pivotal movement" as movement of the parts of the joint structure "about different axes at the same time or at different times." (Emphasis added.) The district court had ample...