Bela Seating Company v. Poloron Products, Inc.

• Decision Date: 23 December 1968
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 65 C 1702.
• Citation: 297 F. Supp. 489
• Parties: BELA SEATING COMPANY, Inc., Plaintiff, v. POLORON PRODUCTS, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

297 F. Supp. 489

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

Civ. A. No. 65 C 1702.

United States District Court N. D. Illinois, E. D.

December 23, 1968.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Dressler, Goldsmith, Clement & Gordon, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.

Bair, Freeman & Molinare, Chicago, Ill., for defendant.

AUSTIN, District Judge.

FINDINGS OF FACT AND CONCLUSIONS OF LAW FINDINGS OF FACT THE PARTIES

1. Plaintiff, Bela Seating Company, Inc. (Bela Seating), is an Illinois corporation having a place of business at 9505 South Prairie Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. Plaintiff is the successor-in-interest of J & J Tool & Machine Company, a sole proprietorship owned by Bela B. Junkunc. For purposes of convenience, both Bela Seating and J & J Tool & Machine Company are referred to in these Findings of Fact as "plaintiff."

2. Defendant, Poloron Products, Inc. (Poloron), is a New York corporation. Defendant has admitted that it has a regular and established place of business at 600 South Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. Acts of infringement, including sales of the accused chairs, have been committed in Chicago and elsewhere.

THE ISSUES

3. This suit was filed by plaintiff on October 13, 1965, for infringement of United States Letters Patent No. 2,954,073, entitled "Folding Tablet Arm Chair," issued on September 27, 1960 in the name of Bela B. Junkunc. On January 1, 1965, the entire right, title and interest in and to the patent in suit (hereinafter sometimes called the Junkunc patent) was assigned to Bela Seating.

4. The case was tried on the issues presented by the Amended Complaint and the Amended Answer and Counterclaim. Defendant was charged with infringing claims 1 through 7, 10, 12, 14 and 15 of the Junkunc patent. Defendant denied validity and infringement and counterclaimed against plaintiff, charging violation of the antitrust laws.

5. Prior to trial, defendant moved for summary judgment on the ground that plaintiff had allegedly misused its patent by refusing to grant to defendant a license on the identical terms and conditions as are contained in a license previously granted to another company, Hampden Specialty Products Corp. Defendant's motion was denied.

6. The trial was extensive and thorough, continuing for a period of ten days in court. The record of testimony and argument is almost 2,000 pages in length. These Findings of Fact represent a thorough study of the evidence and are based on the most credible evidence.

THE SUBJECT MATTER OF THE PATENT IN SUIT

The Disclosure

7. The Junkunc patent concerns a "Y-frame" folding chair which has a tablet arm that is supported in its position of use by an elogated link pivotally connected at one end to the chair seat and connected at its other end to the underside of the tablet arm by means that (a) permit pivotal movement of the tablet arm with respect to the link about two perpendicular axes, and (b) also permit sliding movement of the tablet arm along the link. The actual invention disclosed in the patent in suit is not limited to such means in the form either of a true universal joint or the equivalent thereof, nor is it limited to use of a slidable sleeve of any type in such means. Nothing in the prior art requires any such limitation.

8. The tablet arm disclosed in the Junkunc patent moves from a lowermost out-of-the-way position (illustrated in Figure 3 of the patent) to a writing position (illustrated in Figures 1, 2 and 17 of the patent), and vice versa, independently of the chair seat while the chair seat is in its open, unfolded position.

9. The tablet arm disclosed in plaintiff's patent also opens to its writing position cooperatively with the chair seat when the chair is unfolded into its open position from its fully closed position (illustrated in Figures 6 and 16 of the patent).

10. The tablet arm disclosed in plaintiff's patent also moves down from its writing position to a fully closed position cooperatively with the chair seat when the chair seat is folded into its fully closed position from its open, writing position.

Differences Between Y-Frame and X-Frame Chairs

11. Chairs of the "Y-frame" type are completely different in structure and operation from chairs of the "X-frame" type. A "Y-frame" folding chair is a folding chair in which the front frame and the back legs of the chair form an inverted Y-shaped structure, and if the chair is a folding tablet arm chair, the tablet arm supporting link is pivotally connected at its lower end to the chair seat, as is required by the claims of the Junkunc patent. In contrast, in the conventional "X-frame" folding chair, the front and rear legs cross to form an X-shape, and, if the chair is a folding tablet arm chair, the tablet arm supporting link is pivotally connected at its lower end to the front frame of the chair.

2. A Y-frame chair is usually formed of tubular steel, while an X-frame chair is usually formed of channel steel. This is so because if an X-frame chair were made of tubular steel, the frame would become very bulky by reason of the additional width required to allow for the scissors action of the front legs against the rear legs. On the other hand, the Y-frame chair is very well suited for the desirable tubular steel construction because it does not have the scissors action of the legs.

13. The difference between tubular steel and channel steel construction is extremely important. There is testimony by witnesses for both parties as to the superiority of the tubular steel construction as compared with the channel steel construction.

14. Other advantages of the Y-frame chair over the conventional X-frame chair are that a Y-frame chair is usually easier to open than an X-frame chair, a Y-frame chair has superior strength and rigidity over the X-frame chair, and a Y-frame chair is considerably more stable and safer than an X-frame chair.

The Invention Was of Great Significance to the Chair Industry

15. Despite the fact that chairs with Y-frame construction have many advantages over X-frame chairs, prior to the invention of the patent in suit there was no Y-frame folding chair with a tablet arm that could be moved both cooperatively and independently with respect to the seat. The Junkunc invention gave to the industry and to the public for the first time a Y-frame folding tablet arm chair with both cooperative and independent movement of the tablet arm with respect to the folding and unfolding of the chair seat.

16. The patented chair is very useful in institutions such as schools, churches, clubs, cafeterias, hotels, business establishments, colleges, universities and the like.

17. It is very important for institutional use to have folding tablet arm chairs that can be stored in a relatively small amount of space. With the patented chair, the seat, legs and tablet arm can be folded to provide a compact unit. The folded chairs can thus be stacked and stored in a small space whenever desired.

18. It is also important in institutional use that folding tablet arm chairs be opened and closed quickly so that they can be set up and subsequently removed in a very short time. With the patented chair, there is cooperative movement of the tablet arm with the chair seat, making possible rapid setting up or rapid folding, and in preferred embodiments both rapid setting up and rapid folding.

19. To open the patented chair, one needs merely to lift up on the tablet arm and as the arm swings up, the seat and legs unfold cooperatively with the tablet arm. The chair may be folded automatically from its fully opened position by merely putting one foot on the conventional bottom cross brace at the rear of the chair and pulling up on the backrest of the chair. Another method of rapidly folding the chair while the tablet arm is in its writing position is to grasp the seat and pull up on it to fold it.

20. In institutional use, it is also very advantageous to have a tablet arm that can be swung out of the user's way, while the chair seat remains in its open position. Such independent movement of the tablet arm permits closer spacing of rows of chairs and also enables one to sit down on the chair and get up from the chair with ease. The independent movement of the tablet arm with respect to the chair seat is extremely useful for specialized activities, such as in music classes, in which the tablet arm is used only part of the time.

21. The Junkunc invention was of great significance to the chair industry. None of the many chairs of the prior art had all the advantages of the patented chair which are specified in Findings of Fact 12 through 20 above.

Courtroom Demonstrations of Plaintiff's Chairs

22. The very chair from which Figures 1 through 16 of the drawings of the patent in suit were prepared was operated in courtroom demonstrations. These demonstrations established that that chair was indeed one of the chairs disclosed in the patent in suit, and that the claims in issue in this lawsuit read upon that chair.

23. Plaintiff's present commercial chair, which is covered by the claims in issue in this lawsuit, was also operated in courtroom demonstrations. Plaintiff's commercial chair is substantially the same as the particular chair from which Figures 1 through 16 of the drawings of the patent in suit were prepared, the main difference being that in the chair sold commercially today the tablet arm is designed to drop to a still lower out-of-the-way position at the side of the chair than is shown in Figure 3 of the patent. This difference is not reflected in the claims of the patent in suit.

24. During preparation for the trial of this lawsuit, one of plaintiff's employees was instructed to make the chair shown in Figures 17-21 of the Junkunc patent, and he did construct a chair that conformed to those drawings. Courtroom demonstrations of that chair clearly established its operability and usefulness, and that the claims in issue in this lawsuit read...