Crown Cork & Seal Co. of Baltimore City v. Sterling Cork & Seal Co.

• Decision Date: 16 October 1914
• Docket Number: 2460.
• Citation: 217 F. 381
• Parties: CROWN CORK & SEAL CO. OF BALTIMORE CITY v. STERLING CORK & SEAL CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

217 F. 381

CROWN CORK & SEAL CO. OF BALTIMORE CITY v. STERLING CORK & SEAL CO.

No. 2460.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

October 16, 1914

This was the usual infringement suit, brought by the appellant, as plaintiff, based on two patents-- one granted to Painter, No 638,354, December 5, 1899 (application filed October 28 1898), for a machine for automatically sealing bottles, and one granted to Painter & Hawkins, February 20, 1900, No 643,973, for an apparatus for automatically supplying to the former machine the crowns which it attached to bottles. These crowns are shallow metal caps containing a thin cork disc and the two machines, co-operating rapidly and automatically, place these discs upon the tops of and over the bottles, and then, under very heavy pressure, form the edges down over the top of the bottle neck and so make an air-tight closure. The District Court thought that neither patent was infringed, and dismissed the bill. The two patents are so distinct that they require separate consideration.

Painter's patent is designed to meet a problem presented by the fact that bottles, supposedly alike, are not precisely of the same height, and that, if such a machine is adjusted to give a pressure of (say) 700 pounds in sealing a bottle of the standard height, it will fail properly to close a bottle which is a trifle short, and it will crush a bottle which is a trifle high.

'Claim 6.-- In a pressure-limiting mechanism for bottle-sealing machines, a bottle-support, a compound cylinder, a spring between the two members thereof held under a predetermined compression, a tripping device for automatically releasing said predetermined compression, consisting of a pair of tripping-dogs pivoted to one member of said compound cylinder, and means carried by the other member of said compound cylinder for actuating the dogs, whereby said compound cylinder will become automatically shortened as a whole when the predetermined compression is reached and the pressure applied to the bottle resting thereon be automatically released, substantially as described.'

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The defendant uses the device shown by the accompanying diagram. It is sufficient to say that it has all the parts called for by the claim, accomplishing all the contemplated results, but that they are in such different form and arrangement, and reach their ultimate result under such variant conditions, that the question of infringement depends upon the breadth of equivalency allowed to the claims; and this necessarily brings us to the prior art.

'Claim 1.-- In combination in a bottle-sealing machine, a pressure-applying head, a table or rest for the bottle, means for moving one of said parts relatively to the other to obtain the desired pressure, and means for automatically limiting the application of pressure when a predetermined degree is reached, irrespective of the length of stroke of the movable part, substantially as described.' The accompanying sketch shows his solution. The bottle was supported by a stand, which, with each revolution of the machine, was raised a certain distance by a supporting cam. The stand consisted of three telescoping members. The upper bottle-holding member is provided with a long rod carrying, at its bottom, a piston-shaped device adapted to enter the extreme bottom telescoping member or socket. Such entry, however, is normally prevented by locking dogs, which prevent telescoping and make the two members a unit in resisting pressure. An outer case serves as a third telescoping member, within which the bottle-supporting member passes downwardly whenever the bottom piston is permitted to enter the receiving socket. Within this case, and interposed below a shoulder on the upper member and above a sliding disc or horizontal portion, which normally is held rigid by the upper end of the locking dogs, but which may descend when these dogs are unlocked at the lower end, there is interposed a spring, known as the 'spring under predetermined compression' (which we shall call the 'upper spring '). It will be seen from the accompanying sketch that this horizontal disc or diaphragm which is the lower end of the part marked e5, primarily receives and carries the entire thrust of the sealing operation, and does so through this upper spring; and it is evident that if this spring is set so that it will not be further compressed until it receives a pressure of more than (say) 700 pounds, all the parts named will at first be held in rigid, relative position, but that when this pressure is exceeded, and this spring yields very slightly, the dog-retaining piston, at the lower end of the rod, will descend correspondingly, the dogs will swing inwardly, the locking engagement will disappear, and, thereupon, if nothing further was provided, the entire upper part of the device, including the supporting stand and its rod, with the upper spring and the part e5 and the dogs, would fall until stopped by the bottom of the receiving socket, and these parts would then have to be raised until the dogs could again spring into locking position to be ready for the next operation. To accomplish this resetting automatically, Painter provides a further spring, under suitable compression, but somewhat less than in the upper spring, and the bottom of the part, e5, is supported in the casing by this resetting spring. The result is that, as soon as by the yielding of the upper spring the dogs have been unlocked, the entire thrust is transferred to the lower spring, which gives a yielding resistance thereto, and then, as soon as the pressure is relieved, sufficiently elevates the upper parts and resets the device. The secondary resistance interposed by this spring to the thrust, thereby preventing the parts from being telescoped further than is necessary and avoiding a collapse, seems an important function, though it receives no mention in the specification.

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Of the three claims sued upon under this patent, 4, 5, and 6, it is sufficient to quote claim 6, which is as follows:

The Painter patent in suit was not his first attempt to solve the problem. He had found another solution, by his patent No. 609,209, of August 16, 1898. This may fairly be called similar, in general construction and operation, to the patent in suit, excepting that the piston carried by the bottom of the rod was more truly a piston and rested upon a body of oil which filled the casing below that point. When the pressure overcame the resistance of the upper spring and the piston rod moved downward slightly, it opened ports in this piston and thereupon the piston would slowly descend as the pressure continued and as the liquid passed to the other side. The supposed breadth and scope of this invention are indicated by claim 1, which is as follows: J. Q. Rice, of New York City, and R. H. Parkinson, of Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

C. P. Byrnes and G. H. Parmelee, both of Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellee.

Before WARRINGTON and DENISON, Circuit Judges, and EVANS, District judge.

DENISON Circuit Judge (after stating the facts as above).

It is familiar knowledge that, either on account of the injury to the material handled or on account of the breakage of the machine on an unexpected resistance, it has been common in many arts to provide a pitman or plunger which would exert force rigidly up to a predetermined point, and, if the resistance was not overcome, would then yield. The record informs us that this method of treatment has been so common and the plan which is devised for one situation is often so adaptable to other situations that the Patent Office maintains, in its classification list and under the class 'Machine Elements,' a subclass known as 'Pitman-- Longitudinally Yieldable.' Yielding resistance by hydraulic cylinder, or by air cylinder, or by springs, were different principles invoked in the different forms. The conception which lay at the bottom of plaintiff's 1898 patent, viz., that he could go to the yielding plunger art, or to some specific art, and adopt a yielding plunger as an element of a bottle-sealing machine, was a meritorious conception. It may have entitled him to a broad monopoly upon any use of a yielding plunger in that association (as was apparently secured to him by the first claim of his 1898 patent). That question is not before us, and we do not mean to intimate any opinion; but, however that may be, having had this conception in 1898 and having received a patent, he could not have another patent in 1899 which would do more than cover the improvement which he then discovered. Having gone into the yielding plunger art, and adopted and adapted the hydraulic cylinder yielding plunger into and for a bottle-sealing machine, and having thus bridged over whatever gap there was between bottle-sealing machines and yielding plungers, and having thus incorporated the two arts together, he could not the next year adapt a mechanical trip-yielding plunger to bottle-sealing machine use and then get a valid patent covering any kind of a mechanical trip-yielding plunger when used in a bottle-sealing machine. Yet this is, in effect, his present position, and must be his position to succeed. There remained open for his 1899 patent only his adaptation, not his adoption. Judge Killits happily expressed this thought in his opinion below, when he said:

'But, when Painter patented the mechanism alleged to be infringed in this case, the art of bottle-sealing by crowns had already invaded the art of yielding pitman, of which the known forms were many, and had made an appropriation therefrom. Whatever may be the merits of his invention, we find nothing in his grant which shuts the door of opportunity to some other inventor to go to the yielding plunger art

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