Coffield v. Sunny Line Appliance, Inc.

• Decision Date: 01 April 1924
• Docket Number: 3939.
• Citation: 297 F. 609
• Parties: COFFIELD v. SUNNY LINE APPLIANCE, Inc.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

297 F. 609

COFFIELD v. SUNNY LINE APPLIANCE, Inc.

No. 3939.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

April 1, 1924

Edward L. Reed, of Dayton, Ohio (Angell, Turner & Dyer, of Detroit Mich., on the brief), for appellant.

Edward N. Pagelsen, of Detroit, Mich., for appellee.

Before DENISON and DONAHUE, Circuit Judges, and JONES, District Judge.

DONAHUE Circuit Judge.

This appeal involves the validity, and, if valid, the question of infringement by appellee, of claims 8, 9, and 10 of United States letters patent No. 1,270,379, issued to James L Coffield, June 25, 1918, on his application filed October 9 1917. The patent relates to the form and arrangement of driving gear for washing machines and to the washing cylinder or clothes receptacle. The claims in suit are printed in the margin. ^[1] The defendant in its answer denied the validity of these claims, pleaded a number of prior art patents, attached thereto certified copies of these patents, and thereupon moved the court to dismiss the bill of complaint, on the ground that claims 8, 9, and 10 are shown to be invalid by the record. Upon the hearing of this motion the defendant also exhibited to the court one of the claimed infringing machines, and it appears from the opinion of the court that counsel for plaintiff then admitted that--

'motor-driven washing machines of that type were old at the time the patentee entered the field but explained that in the old machines parts of the mechanism which oscillated the clothes receptacle were mounted on both end frames, which made the upkeep or proper alignment of the bearings for the small stub shafts of the clothes receptacle quite difficult. Counsel for plaintiff also stated that two years of work were required to produce plaintiff's machine, and argued that this indicated that great difficulties had been overcome in arranging the operating mechanism for the clothes receptacle and the wringer on one side frame.'

The trial court sustained defendant's motion and dismissed the bill of complaint. A motion to dismiss, based in part upon an answer, is an anomaly in practice; but it does not appear from the record that plaintiff then offered any objection to the filing or hearing of this motion; on the contrary, he voluntarily made the admissions and statements above recited. Such a motion, perhaps, most closely resembles a final hearing on bill and answer. In this case no replication was filed, yet we doubt whether the submission was intended by defendant to be final. More probably it was intended to create the situation that would exist if the bill exhibited the older patents and the infringing structure, and the motion to dismiss were then made. The plaintiff might then rightly suppose the existence of any invention supporting proof which he might in good faith propose to make, while the defendant would seem to have the right to take proof if its motion were denied.

We are asked to sanction the practice here adopted; but we do not see how it can well be authorized against the objection of either party. This court has many times passed upon the situation arising in patent cases upon a demurrer or motion to dismiss. Such a motion cannot be sustained, unless the lack of patentability is so palpable that no conceivable evidence could show the fact to be otherwise. American Co. v. Buckskin Co. (Taft, C.J.) 72 F. 508, 18 C.C.A. 662; Milner Co. v. Ysbera (Severens, C.J.) 111 F. 386, 49 C.C.A. 397; Ferro Co. v. Concrete Co. (Warrington, C.J.) 206 Fed. 666, 124 C.C.A. 466; International Co. v. Seivert (Knappen, C.J.) 213 F. 225, 129 C.C.A. 569. Yet, in a sufficiently clear case the court will refuse to hear the necessarily useless proofs and dismiss the bill. Heaton Co. v. Schlochtermyer (Taft, C.J.) 72 F. 520, 18 C.C.A. 674; Strom Co. v. Weir Co. (Severens, C.J.) 83 F. 170, 27 C.C.A. 502; Northwood v. Dalzell (Ricks, D.J.) 100 F. 98, 40 C.C.A. 295; Boldt Co. v. Nivison Co. (Sater, D.D.) 194 F. 871, 114 C.C.A. 617. By the principles of these cases, this record must be judged.

The prior patent art had two classes of devices of this general type--one in which the tub, holding the water and the clothes, was made to oscillate by a hand lever at one end the other in which the tub was stationary, and held within it a more or less open cylinder, as of slats, which was the immediate clothes container and which was, by power-driven gearing mounted on the frame, made to oscillate within the water body. Coffield's patent drawing shows an oscillating tub of the first type, driven in the general manner of the second; but this combination is further to be affected by the express admission that such tubs, of this first type, had been oscillated by power gearing applied to both ends of the shaft. In addition to this combination of these two...