C.C.A.Mich. 1922. Marshall Ventilated Mattress Co. v. D'Arcy Spring Co.

• Decision Date: 02 May 1922
• Docket Number: 3574.,3568
• Parties: MARSHALL VENTILATED MATTRESS CO. v. D'ARCY SPRING CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

280 F. 945

MARSHALL VENTILATED MATTRESS CO. v. D'ARCY SPRING CO.

Nos. 3568, 3574.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

May 2, 1922

Otis A Earl, of Kalamazoo, Mich. (Chappell & Earl, of Kalamazoo Mich., on the brief), for defendant.

Before KNAPPEN, DENISON, and DONAHUE, Circuit Judges.

DENISON Circuit Judge.

The Marshall Company brought suit against the D'Arcy Company for infringment of the Genge patent, No. 1,246,081, dated November 13, 1917, for a spring cushion for mattresses, and alleged also infringement of trade-mark rights in the word 'Marshall,' and unfair competition in trade. The D'Arcy Company denied any trespass in these respects, and by its answer and counterclaim alleged infringement by the Marshall Company of patent No. 1,172,344, dated February 22 1916, issued to D'Arcy for a cushion structure. The District Court found that plaintiff must fail upon the trade-mark and unfair competition issues; that claims 6, 7 8, and 9 of the Genge patent were valid, and were infringed by defendant; and that claim 3 of the D'Arcy patent (the only one sued upon) was not infringed by the plaintiff. Both parties appeal.

The Genge patent is illustrated in the drawings as applied to a mattress; the device which is said to be an infringement is an automobile cushion, and the latter form only need be considered. The patent has to do only with the wire and spring framework and construction underneath the upholstering. It shows an upper and lower horizontal frame; the lower one carries a mass of closely adjacent upright spiral springs, arranged in longitudinal rows parallel to the front of the cushion.

Each frame is approximately rectangular, though with rounded corners, and is made of a heavy wire, bent into the appropriate shape. In connection with the front wire of the upper frame, which constitutes the upper front edge of the cushion, Genge has what he calls a truss. It is a wire of about the same quality as the front edge wire, lies back of it in the same horizontal plane, and perhaps 3 inches distant, and for the central half of its length is parallel to the front wire. Its ends are inclined forward in the same horizontal plane until they meet and join the frame at the front corners. The central and parallel portion of this truss is connected or tied to the front rod by three wire cross-ties, which Genge calls struts. The truss extends back over and lies along the top of and engages with the second row of springs, and its attachment to the front rod is rigid enough so that it sinks down with the front rod in a unitary way when the weight of the occupant comes upon the cushion. It thus tends to maintain the proper relation between the front part of the cushion and the part further back.

Based upon this described structure, Genge makes the following claim:

'(6) In a mattress or cushion comprising a base defining the bottom outline of said mattress or cushion, resilient, elastic means supported on said base, a top border frame defining the top outline of said mattress or cushion, said top border frame having a reinforcing truss connected to one side thereof, said truss overlying and engaging a part of the resilient elastic means adjacent that side of the border frame to which it is connected, and including inclined members attached to the frame at the ends of the side which it reinforces.'

The controversy over the validity of this claim has involved the particular meaning of 'truss.' We cannot think it is a completely appropriate term, when applied to these wire structures. The dominant idea of a truss is that its members are fitted to interpose against the expected strain their capacity for resistance to longitudinal compression and are sufficiently rigid so that they will not buckle. Of course, any wire which can be easily bent into the form of this top framework and truss has a limited capacity for resisting longitudinal compression without buckling; and there is a very imperfect analogy between the performance of these parts and a typical truss in a building or bridge construction. However, the analogy is not fully lacking, and in these devices the distinction between the mere cross brace and the form which Genge calls a truss is not without importance. It is apparent that, if the so-called truss did not have inclined ends, but was for its whole length parallel to the front edge wire, and if each end was firmly attached to the side wires, and it was fairly rigid, it would, when taken in connection with other similar cross braces further back, or with the rear edge of the frame, serve as a truss for the front edge wire. There is no inherent necessity that any member of a truss structure be diagonal. Square or lattice trusses are familiar, though perhaps they usually have diagonal members also. In such a structure the degree of truss effect would depend upon the degree of rigidity of the side wires and of their corner joints with the front edge wire. Unless this rigidity were sufficient, the side wires would tend to bend at the ends of the cross brace, and so there would be a yielding after the cross brace or square truss had exhausted its effect.

Regardless of the prior printed art, it is not to be doubted that the defendant, long before the Genge patent, had made in large quantities spring cushions, which in this part of the structure were precisely like those now said to infringe, excepting that it had used this completely parallel cross brace or square truss; and the only question of validity, therefore, is whether there was patentable invention in angling the ends of this cross brace forward and attaching them to the ends of the sides.

It is true that there would not ordinarily be invention in merely substituting a truss with angling members for a truss with rectangular members; but Genge was not only working in a field of imperfect analogy, as above pointed out, and in one where a great variety of cross bracing had been tried without developing this peculiar application, but he also obtained at least in theory, from his peculiar angling form two new results. He secured some benefit from...