Coldwell-Gildard Co. v. Stafford Co.

• Citation: 197 F. 568
• Decision Date: 27 June 1912
• Docket Number: 156 Equity. (C.C. 683).
• Parties: COLDWELL-GILDARD CO. et al. v. STAFFORD CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

197 F. 568

COLDWELL-GILDARD CO. et al. v. STAFFORD CO.

No. 156 Equity. (C.C. No. 683).

United States District Court, D. Massachusetts.

June 27, 1912

Fish Richardson, Herrick & Neave, for complainants.

William A. Copeland and Wilmarth H. Thurston, for defendant.

BROWN District Judge.

This is a bill charging infringement of reissued letters patent to Coldwell & Gildard No. 11,923, July 30, 1901, applied for October 3, 1900. The original patent is No. 637,234, applied for November 17, 1898, granted November 21, 1899.

Claims 19 to 30, inclusive, excepting claim 26, are in issue. These are new claims not found in the original, but first found in the reissue. In the original the specification states:

'Our invention relates to improvements in stop-motions for looms, and particularly to that class wherein an electrical current is employed for setting the stop-motion and is established by the breaking of one or more warp threads.'

Excepting claims 1 and 2 for a special drop-bar as an article of manufacture, the claims of the original patent are for an electrically operated stop-motion. There clearly appears an intention to claim the drop-bars themselves as an invention distinguishable from the combination of these drop-bars with electrical means for operating the devices that stop the loom.

The claims in suit are not limited to electrically operated stop-motions, but relate principally to an arrangement and construction of drop-bars suitable for use with mechanically operated stop-motions as well as with electrically operated stop-motions. The defenses are (1) invalidity of the reissue (2) anticipation, (3) noninvention.

The general principle of the warp stop-motion is that the breaking of a thread serves to release a drop-bar whose fall actuates a device which stops the loom. Drop-bars hung upon warp threads, released by the breaking of the thread, and serving by their fall to actuate mechanical or electrical agencies and thus stop the loom, were very old. The art is full of such devices, and it is said that prior to 1908 there were in different countries about 200 patents for warp stop-motions.

The defendant's brief states that in the prior art were two general forms: Mechanical stop-motions in which the dropping of a drop-bar stops the loom solely by mechanical means, and electrical stop-motions in which the dropping of the bar closes an electric circuit, thus actuating the stopping device.

In the original patent is shown an electric circuit normally open, but closed upon the breaking of a warp thread through the fall of its drop-bar. The complainants state that the original patent discloses an arrangement and construction of drop-bars which is new and valuable in that it prevents the chafing of the threads; that this is equally valuable whether the loom is 'knocked off' by electrical or by purely mechanical means; and that the drop-bars are used by the parties complainant in both ways.

It is said that the danger of breaking threads was real, and that it was highly desirable that the drop-bars, introduced to detect breaks, should not themselves be a cause of breakage by chafing the threads.

The Coldwell & Gildard invention, it is said, is the culmination of the art in this direction, 'since each thread is exposed to only the slight friction of a single light drop-bar which is free to vibrate up and down or transversely, and is wholly relieved from the crowding and chafing effect of the adjacent drop-bars.'

That there is substantial merit in the anti-friction feature is satisfactorily shown by the testimony of practical men and by the extensive use of the invention. This feature is especially valuable with soft and delicate threads and in the manufacture of high sleyed goods with from 96 to 128 threads to the inch.

The application for a reissue was filed a little more than 10 months after the date of the original patent.

It is not disputed by complainants that the claims of the reissue and of the original are of very different scope. It is said, however, that the claims added by the reissue cover the warp stop-mechanism shown in Fig. 5 and described in the original specification, without the unnecessary limitation to electrical connections and with express reference to avoidance of chafing.

The right is asserted to make these claims as for new and useful subcombinations of the entire Coldwell & Gildard machine not adequately protected by the original patent.

The defendant contends that each original claim, except claims 1 and 2, is limited to electrical operation and is for an organized stop-motion, and includes the parts necessary to close the circuit, and that no one of the new claims is for an organized stop-motion; that each new claim of the reissue is for a combination different from the combinations of the original patent and therefore for an entirely different invention. It is also said that each claim is for an invention different from anything pointed out or referred to as an invention in the original Coldwell & Gildard patent. It is further argued that the patentees never had any idea or conception of using these parts in a mechanical stop-motion, but that this was a subsequent discovery made by others after the issue of the original patent.

Upon the question of the known or obvious applicability of the drop-bar arrangement for use otherwise than in an electrical combination, the briefs touch very lightly; both briefs make the statement, however, that it was well known that the fall of a drop-bar could stop a loom either by closing a circuit or by coming into the way of some reciprocating part. The testimony of defendant's expert Randall is cited to that effect.

As bearing upon the question of the right to reissue, however, it should be noted that in the original as well as in the reissued patent there are claims for the drop-bars as an invention independent of the combinations in which the drop-bars are elements, and that there is in the original a reference to the subject of chafing which seems inaccurate and inadequate and properly amendable. The amendment in this particular, which makes special reference to the shape of the drop-bars in connection with the subject of chafing, cannot be said to be the improper introduction of new matter, but rather a permissible correction of an inaccurate and inadequate description. The defendant is not charged with infringement of the drop-bar claims since claims 1 and 2 are each limited to a special form of drop-bar not used by the defendant. In view of the testimony as to the use of both mechanical and electric devices to stop the loom, infringement of claims 1 and 2 could not be avoided by using drop-bars of the special construction shown to actuate purely mechanical means to knock off the loom.

The evidence shows that the drop-bars themselves are applicable to both forms of stop-motion. Drop-bars are so old a device that the claims 1 and 2 for 'drop-bars' could...