Cornell v. ADAMS ENGINEERING COMPANY, Civ. No. 6521-M.

• Decision Date: 19 July 1957
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 6521-M.
• Citation: Cornell v. ADAMS ENGINEERING COMPANY, 156 F.Supp. 872 (S.D. Fla. 1957)
• Parties: George W. CORNELL and W. Elder Cornell, Jr., Plaintiffs, v. ADAMS ENGINEERING COMPANY, Inc., a Florida corporation, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida

156 F. Supp. 872

George W. CORNELL and W. Elder Cornell, Jr., Plaintiffs, v. ADAMS ENGINEERING COMPANY, Inc., a Florida corporation, Defendant.

Civ. No. 6521-M.

United States District Court S. D. Florida, Miami Division.

July 19, 1957.

J. Matthews Neale, Washington, D. C., R. D. Maxwell, Jr., L. L. Robinson, Miami, Fla., Strauch, Nolan & Neale, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

Blackwell, Walker & Gray, Miami, Fla., Kenyon & Kenyon, New York City (Clemen J. Ehrlich, Miami, Fla., Ralph L. Chappell, New York City, of counsel), for defendant.

LIEB, District Judge.

Findings of Fact

1. This is an action for infringement of Cornell Patent 2,718,677 for a Threshold and Door Sealing Construction.

2. Plaintiffs are citizens and residents of the State of Florida and are the owners of the patent in suit, applied for February 23, 1954, and issued to them on September 27, 1955.

3. Defendant is a Florida corporation having its principal place of business in Miami, Florida.

4. Adams Engineering Company, Inc., is a manufacturer of doors, sliding doors, windows, aluminum furniture, thresholds, extrusions and tubing and has manufactured in the past and still manufactures the double lip hook-strip type threshold hereinafter referred to and has manufactured a vinyl insert type threshold known as Defendant's Model A since July, 1955, and a bumper type vinyl insert threshold designated Defendant's Model B since August, 1955.

5. Plaintiffs, doing business as the Duraflex Company, publicly offered a vinyl insert threshold of the type disclosed by Patent 2,718,677 in suit at the February, 1954, Miami Industrial Exposition. As far as the evidence in this case discloses, no one offered commercially a vinyl insert type threshold of the type disclosed by the patent in suit or like Defendant's Model A and Model B thresholds or similar positive sealing thresholds prior to February, 1954.

6. George Cornell, owner of Patent 2,718,677 in suit, being cognizant of the difficulties and disadvantages of the commonly used prior existing threshold structures, departed from the concepts generally followed commercially in the art, namely the use of the "hook-strip" devices providing only a baffle type of seal, by utilizing a deformable, resilient, positive sealing strip in place of the hook-strip and mounting it in a rigid support strip that was intended to be permanently and quickly installed by the mechanic or the homeowner himself.

7. It is claimed that driving rains and sand and insects that could enter through the passages provided by the "hook-strip" type threshold are effectively prevented from passage past the door or like closure by such a positive seal.

8. The Cornell structure contemplates a threshold construction or sealing assembly which can be readily mounted in a door or like opening to provide a positive sealing contact throughout the length of the space between the closure opening and the closure member. As disclosed in the patent, the assembly comprises either a rigid support strip, main deformable and resilient sealing strip removably secured to the support strip for sealing cooperation with the opposed closure edge, and resilient and deformable underseal strips for sealing cooperation with the opposed surface of the closure opening outwardly beyond laterally spaced closure opening abutment surfaces; or a rigid support strip having laterally spaced abutment surfaces for engaging the opposed surface of the closure opening and a main resilient and deformable sealing strip for sealing cooperation with the adjacent edge of the closure member. Cornell proposed a rigid support strip of aluminum having laterally spaced abutment surfaces for contacting the surfaces of the closure opening defining walls, longitudinally extending reinforcing rib structure, longitudinally extending groove means in the face opposite the abutment surfaces removably to receive the resilient and deformable sealing strip, and a highly flexible resilient and deformable sealing strip, preferably of vinyl plastic, provided with securing means adapting the sealing strip for secure but removable attachment to the support strip. As a preferred but optional feature, Cornell proposed longitudinally extending seal securing grooves along the opposite under edges of the support strip and under edge resilient and deformable sealing strips.

9. The door seal is a thin, arched, flexible strip which has at its edges anchoring means adapted to be inserted in undercut grooves. These anchoring means are in the form of arrowheads having a thin shank, a pointed nose to facilitate insertion in the grooves, and barbs or wings adapted to spread out in the grooves. The strip is thinnest at its center and gradually increases in thickness to the points where there are rounded abutment shoulders which lie directly adjacent to the necks supporting the barbs.

10. Claims 8 through 10 cover the combination of the flexible deformable sealing strip with its locking means.

11. Claims 14 through 16 and 19 cover the combination of the one piece grooved, arched supporting base with the arched flexible strip and the locking means.

12. Claim 21 omits the sealing strip.

13. The Patent Office did not have before it for consideration, at the time the patent application was being prosecuted, the Schanz Patent 1,998,791, granted April 23, 1935, which shows a sealing strip with the same arrowhead locking means as used in the patent in suit, nor the Kelly Patent 1,881,661, granted October 11, 1932, which shows the combination of a one piece, arched, extruded aluminum ribbed base threshold having a groove to support a resilient sealing member, nor the defendant's prior art ABC jalousie which is identical in all material respects with the Model B threshold charged to infringe; nor the Sevison Patent 2,329,791, granted September 21, 1943; the Krupp Patent 2,654,922, granted October 13, 1953; the India Rubber World, issue of ...