City of Grafton v. Otis Elevator Co.

• Decision Date: 27 February 1948
• Docket Number: No. 5684.,5684.
• Parties: CITY OF GRAFTON, W. VA., et al. v. OTIS ELEVATOR CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

166 F.2d 816 (1948)

CITY OF GRAFTON, W. VA., et al. v. OTIS ELEVATOR CO.

No. 5684.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

February 27, 1948.

Clarence B. Des Jardins, of Cincinnati, Ohio (Des Jardins & Compton, of Cincinnatti, Ohio, D. H. Hill, Arnold and Arnold, Crawford & Hyer, all of Elkins, W. Va., on the brief), for appellants.

Clair V. Johnson, of New York City (Watson, Bristol, Johnson & Leavenworth, of New York City, on the brief), for appellee.

Before PARKER, SOPER and DOBIE, Circuit Judges.

DOBIE, Circuit Judge.

Otis Elevator Company (hereinafter called Otis) instituted a civil action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia against the City of Grafton, West Virginia, and its guarantor, the Warner Elevator Manufacturing Company (hereinafter called Warner). Otis, owner of Lindquist patent 1,904,647, charged that this patent was infringed by the elevator system installed by Warner in the Grafton City Hospital. The District Court held that the patent in suit was valid and was infringed by the accused device. The opinion of the District Judge is reported in 72 F.Supp. 833. Defendants have appealed to us, raising the questions of the validity of the Lindquist patent and the infringement thereof by the Grafton elevator.

We first consider the question of the validity of the Lindquist patent. The device covered by the patent is very complicated and the patent as issued covers over forty printed pages. We are dealing here with a combination patent. The requisites for a valid combination patent are thus set out, with an elaborate citation of authorities, in 40 Am.Jur. 543, § 19: "A combination is a composition of elements, some of which may be old and others new, or all old or all new. It is, however, the combination that is the invention, and is as much a unit in contemplation of law as a single or noncomposite instrument. The authorities establish the following propositions respecting the patentability of devices or processes of this character: (1) that a combination is patentable if it produces new and useful results, although all its constituents were well known and in common use before it was made, provided the results are a product of the combination, and not a mere aggregate of several results, each the product of one of the combined elements; (2) if it produces a different force, effect, or result in the combined forces or processes from that given by their separate parts, and a new result is given by their union; (3) if it either forms a new machine of distinct character or formation, or produces a result which is not the mere aggregate of separate contributions, but is due to the joint and co-operating action of all the elements; (4) when the several elements of which it is composed produce by their joint action either a new and useful result, or an old result in a cheaper or otherwise more advantageous way."

The validity of the very patent here in suit was sustained in Otis Elevator Co. v. 570 Building Corporation, 35 U.S.P.Q. 420, by Judge Moscowitz, sitting in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. This decision was unanimously affirmed by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, opinion by Judge Swan, 98 F.2d 699, and certiorari was denied by the United States Supreme Court, 305 U.S. 640, 59 S.Ct. 107, 83 L.Ed 412. We cordially agree with the result and the reasoning in that case and it should be unnecessary for us to add much to what was there said in the opinions of District Judge Moscowitz and Circuit Judge Swan.

The Lindquist patent discloses an elevator system consisting primarily of an elevator car, operating in a hatchway, serving a plurality of floors, a motor for moving the car up and down, a brake for stopping the car, and a control system for the elevator car. It is with this control system that we are particularly concerned.

Within the car is a plurality of control switches in the form of car push buttons, one for each floor; at each intermediate floor are an Up hall push button and a Down hall push button; at each terminal floor is a single hall button, a Down button at the highest floor, an Up button at the lowest floor. The hall buttons serve to call the car to the indicated floors; the car push buttons to send the car to the indicated floors. Since these push buttons are continuously operable, a call can be registered at any time. Each hall push button operates a floor relay to register a call, which for the intermediate floors corresponds to the desired direction of travel; each car push button operates a floor relay to register a call for its corresponding floor. Once in operation each floor relay is retained in operative condition to maintain the call registered until that particular call is answered, then the relay is reset by its other coil.

The registering of a call in response to the push button first pressed starts the car by the operation of switching mechanism which causes the application of power to the motor. When once started, the car continues to move until mechanism, controlled by car movement and responsive to the relay operated, causes it to be intercepted at the floor for which a call is registered, such interception being effected by discontinuing the power to the motor. Thus the car stops in answer to the call, while the operated relay is reset by a mechanism controlled by the movement of the car.

If several push buttons in the car are pressed, this serves to stop the car at the respective floors for which each push button has been operated. If several hall buttons are presssed, the car, when traveling in the Up direction, is intercepted and stops successively at each floor at which an Up hall button has been pressed; conversely, the car, when traveling in the Down direction, is intercepted and stops successively at each floor at which a Down hall button has been pushed.

It is possible, by the pressure of a push button, to register a call at any time. The car will start or continue to operate by stopping and, after a predetermined timeinterval, the car will automatically restart to answer all the registered calls. These registered calls are answered in the natural order of the floors, quite regardless of the sequence of operation of the push buttons. The car passes by the Down hall-calls when going up, and passes by the Up hall-calls when going down.

In the Lindquist patent, a brake, placed at the top of the hatchway, is provided for the elevator car, together with a hoisting mechanism attached to the car by cables. As the car moves, a pair of tapes, attached to the car, drives the selector machine so that its cross-head moves up and down, picking up the calls and initiating the operations of starting and stopping the car. Also provided are the director switch hatchway cams, the director switch motor and switch, on top of the car, which operate to reverse the direction of the car at the terminal floors.

The pressure of a car button or hall button energizes the coil of its relay, serving to close contacts which are held closed until the resetting of the relay when there is a response to the call. One set of these contacts renders alive the corresponding fixed contact on the selector machine. Another set of relay contacts makes the car start automatically in response to the first registered call; and then this set of relay contacts, after the delay at each stop, effects the automatic restarting of the car until there has been a response to all the registered calls.

As the car travels up, contacts in the circuit of Up brushes, carried by the crosshead of the selector machine, are closed, so that these brushes are alive. Thus,...