Crosley Corp. v. Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 14 December 1945
• Docket Number: 8600.,No. 8581,8581
• Citation: 152 F.2d 895
• Parties: CROSLEY CORPORATION v. WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC & MFG. CO. (two cases).
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

152 F.2d 895 (1945)

CROSLEY CORPORATION v. WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC & MFG. CO. (two cases).

Nos. 8581, 8600.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued October 17, 1944.

Decided December 14, 1945.

Samuel E. Darby, Jr., of New York City (Christy, Parmelee & Strickland, of Pittsburgh, Pa., Floyd H. Crews, of New York City, and Alden D. Redfield, of Cincinnati, Ohio, on the brief), for appellant.

Carl S. Lloyd, of Chicago, Ill. (Victor S. Beam, of New York City, and Brown, Critchlow & Flick, of Pittsburgh, Pa., on the brief), for appellee.

Before GOODRICH and McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judges, and BARD, District Judge.

McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judge.

These cross-appeals involve the validity and alleged infringement of nine patents relating to refrigerators. Each appeal concerns five patents, with one patent appearing in both appeals. On July 31, 1941, Crosley instituted suit against Westinghouse seeking a declaratory judgment of invalidity and noninfringement of sixteen patents owned by Westinghouse and declared by the latter to have been infringed by Crosley. Westinghouse counterclaimed, charging infringement of the sixteen patents and of two others which had been issued after the above referred to complaint had been filed. Westinghouse later withdrew two of the patents, and certain claims of other patents from the counterclaim. Of the sixteen patents passed upon by the Court below, judgment of invalidity or noninfringement, or both, was entered as to eleven with five held to be valid and infringed. Crosley is appealing from the judgment on the five patents which were held to be valid and infringed. Westinghouse appeals from the judgment as to five of the patents which were held to be invalid and/or not infringed. As to the patent involved in both appeals, some of its claims were held valid and others invalid.

In No. 8600, the District Court held invalid Quimper Patent 2,254,780, Kruck Design Patent 112,778, Kucher Patent 1,719,807, McCloy Patent 2,181,856, and Claims 3 and 4 of Anderson Re-issue Patent 21,535. That judgment is affirmed on the opinion of Judge Gibson in the Court below, 52 F.Supp. 884.

Claims 1 and 2 of Anderson Re-issue Patent 21,535, Forsthoefel Patent 2,166,630, Yoxsimer Patent 2,242,335, Ashbaugh Patent 2,079,238 and Roberts Patent No. 2,188,303, held valid by the District Court require more detailed discussion.

I. Anderson Re-issue Patent No. 21,535

The temperature of the type of refrigerators with which we are dealing is controlled by a device commonly called a "cold control," located in an enclosure within the refrigerator cabinet. That instrument may be set at a desired temperature by the operation of a manually operated member connected with an element of the "cold control" switch. Prior to the granting of the patent, such member had been located in one of two places: (1) Inside the food storage compartment of the refrigerator cabinet, or (2) on the outer surface of the latter. Both of those arrangements were subject to serious objections, the former because the dampness and moisture inside the food storage compartment proved detrimental to the proper functioning of the device, and the latter because children might accidently operate the control with serious results to the contents of the refrigerator.

Anderson's arrangement involved the placing of the manually operated member (hereinafter called the disc, for that, in fact, is what it was) in a new location. The "cold control" itself was placed in the machinery space below the food compartment. That was set by a disc, the edge of which, suitably marked with graduations, extended slightly through and above a horizontal plane between the lower (machinery) compartment and the upper (food storage) compartment. It could only be reached when the access door was open, which eliminated objection No. 2. Because it was not located in the food compartment itself but rather in a horizontal plane separated therefrom by insulating material, objection No. 1 was also disposed of.

Anderson, in his statement of claims in the Patent Office says: "From the foregoing, it will be apparent that I have provided refrigeration apparatus of improved appearance, wherein the manually operated temperature control, while readily accessible for inspection and operation, is well protected from bumps or operation by unauthorized persons. Furthermore, the temperature control device is disposed in the machinery compartment, where problems of mounting or freezing of parts of the control, such as sometimes occur when the temperature control is disposed in the food storage compartment are overcome, while the disk 24 is disposed in an accessible position."

The first ground on which Crosley attacks this patent is that "the patent is invalid for complete anticipation by or want of invention over the prior art." As to this alleged want of invention, the District Court decided in favor of Westinghouse, saying, in its opinion 52 F.Supp. 900: "Doubt as to whether the patent disclosed the dignity of invention has been resolved in favor of the owner of the patent for two reasons; first, the issue carries with it the presumption of validity, and second, Crosley promptly adopted the location of the manually controlled member after Westinghouse had disclosed it in its refrigerators."

As we read the record the elements in the Anderson arrangement had been part of the prior art. The only thing that Anderson did was to take those old elements and place them in different positions in and about the refrigerator cabinet. There was nothing new about the idea of a manually operated member governing the "cold control." The Wayman Patent 2,054,474 had that same idea, excepting that the member was there placed in an exposed position on the face of the cabinet. Anderson merely shifted the location of the device.

II. Forsthoefel Patent, No. 2,166,630

The structure of a modern refrigerator cabinet involves an inner liner and an outer liner, spaced apart in proper relationship by various means. The opening between these two liners is closed by a so-called "breaker strip," the function of which is to break the flow of heat between the two shells, thus contributing materially to the efficiency of the refrigerator. The Forsthoefel patent relates to a cabinet construction in which the breaker strip is removable. The strip is held in its proper position by means of springs and a grooved construction. Two of the objects of this type of structure are, in the words of the patent claims, "* * * to provide an improved means for mounting the breaker strips which extend between the edges of the inner and outer wall members at the door opening to close the space between said wall members," and "* * * to provide means for mounting the breaker strips more quickly, in order to reduce the cost of manufacture." The District Court fairly summarized this patent in its findings of fact where it is stated at page 887 of 52 F. Supp.:

"1. The Forsthoefel Patent 2,166,630, Claims 7 and 8 of which are in suit, relates to a refrigerator cabinet construction and particularly to an improved structure for mounting a heat breaker strip (which minimizes heat flow) between the inner and outer wall members of the cabinet and for retaining it in proper relationship to such wall members.

"2. The invention defined in the claims of said patent which are in suit is in the combination of the heat breaker strip, a two-way spring construction and the cabinet elements which cooperate therewith, and not in the breaker strip alone."

As seen, the important thing about the Forsthoefel apparatus is that the heat breaker strip can be readily attached to or removed from the refrigerator cabinet because of the groove-spring arrangement which holds the breaker strip in its proper position, covering the opening between the inner and outer linings of the refrigerator cabinet.

The most important patent in the prior art is Blood, No. 1,995,339, issued March 26, 1935. That invention related to a refrigerator box construction for facilitating the assembly and servicing of the refrigerating apparatus therein. In the discussion of the Anderson patent, supra, mention was made of the fact that the refrigerating machinery was located in a compartment separate from the food storage compartment. It is in the latter, of course, that the freezing unit is placed. In the Blood construction, certain refrigerant conduits and a control cable connecting the freezing unit with the refrigerating machinery passed through an opening in the door framing posts, between the inner and outer linings of the refrigerator cabinet. When repairs became necessary, it was desirable to remove this whole apparatus, including the conduits, to a repair shop without dismantling it in the owner's home. In order to attain that objective it was further desirable to have an easily removable strip closing the space between the inner and outer linings of the cabinet. It is true that this strip, called a "throat lining" in the Blood construction, is not spoken of as a heat breaker strip. The "throat lining" however, occupies approximately the same position in the Blood construction as the breaker strip in the Forsthoefel construction.

Perhaps the best way to outline the principle of the former is to quote the language of Blood's patent application, as follows:

"* * * a conduit channel is formed in the box framework, preferably, in the throat of the door opening, and this channel is normally covered by an easily removable throat lining which also serves to cover the edges of the inner or compartment lining and the outer casing.

"It is accordingly an object of this invention to provide an improved throat lining, and fastening means therefor, for the door frame or opening into a refrigerator compartment, the lining being arranged for ready removal to facilitate the removal or assembly of refrigerant and control conduits extending from a separate machinery compartment to a freezer or...