Cresap v. Chemplast, Inc.

• Decision Date: 14 June 1962
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 893-60.
• Parties: Charles N. CRESAP, Plaintiff, v. CHEMPLAST, INC., Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

216 F. Supp. 870

Charles N. CRESAP, Plaintiff, v. CHEMPLAST, INC., Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 893-60.

United States District Court D. New Jersey.

June 13, 1962.

As Amended June 14, 1962.

William A. Fasolo, Hackensack, N. J., for plaintiff. Logan Cresap, New York City, and A. Yates Dowell, Washington, D. C., of counsel.

Norman N. Popper, Newark, N. J., for defendant.

MEANEY, District Judge.

The plaintiff herein sues the defendant for infringement of United States Patent No. 2,929,109, dated March 22, 1960, the original application having been filed in United States Patent Office December 30, 1954.

The defendant answers and counterclaims, seeking judgment of invalidity of the patent and non-infringement.

During the year 1954 plaintiff experimented in methods of making articles of certain shapes from Teflon powder, a patented product of duPont Company, by compressing the powder into a preform of the desired shape, removing the preform from the molding contrivance and sintering (baking) it in a separate oven. He successfully molded a shallow dish in the early part of that year and a short time thereafter molded a beaker, four of which were sold to the duPont Company on January 3, 1955. Subsequently, during 1955, "bubble caps" and other shapes (in evidence) were molded by the same method.

Plaintiff, as above indicated, filed a patent application on December 30, 1954 and the patent, as finally approved, was issued on March 22, 1960. Meanwhile he had continued to make and market articles of the indicated shapes molded of Teflon powder. It would appear that previously no molded articles of Teflon had been available in these shapes.

The patent in issue sets forth a method by which Teflon powder is compressed against the walls of a rigid mold by means of an expandable bladder to create preforms of hollow articles having relatively thin longitudinal and transverse walls of equal thickness. These preforms are detached from the molds and then sintered in an oven at a specified temperature and pressure.

The defendant was incorporated in 1953 and commenced doing business in 1954. The founders of the defendant company, Wilton Hawkins and Steven Dorn, had been employed by the duPont Company for some time previous to 1954, in connection with promotion of the use of Teflon in industry. Some time in 1957 the defendant company, becoming aware of the growing interest in Teflon beakers and laboratory ware, began molding these products.

As finally issued the patent No. 2,929,109, plaintiff's patent, contained the following claims:

"1. The molding of thin walled objects of substantially uniform density and of symmetrical configuration with longitudinal and transverse walls from linear polymeric powder having the characteristics of deformation under load and from which the recovery is slow and incomplete after the load is removed, comprising providing a rigid mold and an elastic inflatable member, assembling the same in the desired relationship with a space therebetween approximating the shape of the object, introducing powdered plastic to fill said space, closing the mold, substantially removing the gas from the space and pressing such powder against rigid mold surfaces of a shape complementary to that of the desired object by applying fluid pressure to the elastic inflatable member to obtain an equally distributed molding pressure everywhere normal to the walls of the object being molded to create a preform of such object, removing the pressure from the preform, separating the preform from the molding surfaces substantially along the axis of symmetry before the preform has recovered from the pressing load, and sintering the detached preform apart from the pressing apparatus.

"2. The method of claim 1 in which the powder is polytetrafluoroethylene."

These claims must be examined in the light of three provisions of the 1952 Patent Codification Act. These are sections 101, 100(b) and 103 of Title 35 U.S.C. Section 101 states that "Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor * * *." The term process is defined in section 100(b) as a "process, art or method, and includes a new use of a known process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, or material." Section 103 of Title 35 U.S. C. sets out one of the conditions for patentability and states that a patent may not be obtained "if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains."

With the language of section 103 in mind, it may be well at this point to analyze Claim No. 1 with a view to contrasting it with the prior art. If this claim simply represents a combination of already known processes and does not constitute such a novel application of them as would not be apparent to one with ordinary skill in the art to which the subject matter pertains, it may not properly be the subject of a patent. If, however, it constitutes an entirely novel synthesis of pre-existent processes not apparent to one of ordinary skill in and familiarity with the art, a persuasive argument for patentability may exist. The question arising out of the use of a particular product in the process will be referred to hereafter.

The defendant, Chemplast, lists an array of patents which it says clearly demonstrates that every claim made in the patent in suit has been anticipated in the prior art, and further suggests that at least ten United States patents of varying degrees of relevancy to the subject matter of the patent in suit were not cited by the Patent Office, so that the presumption of validity is negated.

Examination of the following patents issued prior to the patent application of the plaintiff herein amply demonstrates that the use of bladder molding was well known in the prior art, as was sintering of the molded product. However, these patents contemplated mainly the use of powdered metal, clay, wood pulp, paper and other suitable materials and did not teach the use of Teflon.

In Senac patent No. 1,023,764, issued April 16, 1912, the use of an elastic pressing member made of a material capable of being expanded by pressure fluid so as to adapt itself to the internal configuration of the mold and transmit the pressure to strips of paper to be molded, is one of the claims.

In the McNeill patent of June 8, 1915, an expansible "chum or core" made of heavy rubber or other similar material is expanded by the introduction of fluid or compressed air, for the purpose of pressing powdered clay between the chum and the mold. In this patent reference is made also to the application of heat to the molded product.

The 1917 grant to Hitchcock, No. 1,221,450, demonstrates the expansible bladder molding of bubble free clay pots in a mold from which the air has been exhausted.

In the Mauersberger patent No. 1,149,669 an expansible impervious core, expanded by supplying a fluid to the core, is shown as pressing paper pulp against the mold.

In patent No. 1,637,532 (Oliver & Culver), August 2, 1927, reference is made to a flexible diaphragm made of rubber or other suitable material to transmit pressure on wet pulp.

In the Porter patent No. 1,637,707, August 2, 1927, an expansible membrane is used to mold ceramic-like materials such as clay.

And similarly in Schwarzkopf patent No. 2,447,434, issued August 17, 1948, the expanding molding element is an expansible bladder.

In Demarest patent No. 2,696,184, December 7, 1954, reference is made to a hollow male die member of resilient material, capable of being expanded by the introduction of fluid under pressure.

And the Young patent No. 2,363,107, granted in 1944, teaches the compression molding of accreted fibrous plastic articles by means of an expansible bladder.

The Squires patent No. 2,710,991, applied for in Great Britain January 26, 1950, and January 18, 1951 in the United States, speaks of a wholly or partly elastic...