Egnot v. Looker

• Decision Date: 14 December 1967
• Docket Number: Patent Appeal No. 7845.
• Citation: 156 USPQ 136,387 F.2d 680
• Parties: Samuel EGNOT, Appellant, v. Robert LOOKER, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)

156 USPQ 136, 387 F.2d 680 (1967)

Samuel EGNOT, Appellant, v. Robert LOOKER, Appellee.

Patent Appeal No. 7845.

United States Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

December 14, 1967.

John A. Blair, Robert L. Boynton, Harness, Dickey & Pierce, Detroit, Mich., for appellant.

George F. Smyth, Los Angeles, Cal., Richard P. Schulze, Washington, D. C., Smyth, Roston & Pavitt, Los Angeles, Cal., for appellee.

Before WORLEY, Chief Judge, RICH, SMITH and ALMOND, Judges, and WILLIAM H. KIRKPATRICK.^*

ALMOND, Judge.

This is an appeal from the decision of the Board of Patent Interferences awarding priority of the subject matter in interference No. 93,815 to the senior party Looker.

The parties herein are the junior party Samuel Egnot, assignor to Huck Manufacturing Company (hereinafter Huck) and Robert Looker, assignor to Brown-Line Corporation. Herein involved are the Egnot application¹ entitled "Fastener Construction" and the Looker patent² entitled "Grooved Pin with Reformable Collar to Accommodate Various Thicknesses."

The invention in issue is a fastener construction using a lockbolt for permanently fastening a plurality of rigid members such as metal plates. The invention is illustrated in figures 1, 3, 5, and 6 of the Looker patent.

Figure 1 shows the lockbolt structure, a pin with a head 20 and a shank 22. The shank has a series of circumferential grooves 30 which are preferably uniformly spaced to form a series of uniform intervening circumferential ribs 32.

The lockbolt is used to fasten two rigid plate members together in the manner illustrated in figures 3, 5 and 6. The lockbolt is inserted through aligned bores in plate members 25 and 26. Deformable collar 24 is slipped over the shank end of the lockbolt (Fig. 3). Driving tool 33 is used to complete the installation. The tool has two sections axially movable relative to each other, one having jaws 38 to engage the end of the pin and, on axial movement, to bring the head of the pin 20 and the collar 24 against the plates (Fig. 5). With further axial movement, an anvil 36 on the other section of the tool swages the deformable collar 24 onto the shank of the pin forcing the collar material into the circumferential grooves of the lockbolt. The end of the shank extending beyond the collar is now broken off at a groove adjacent the end of the collar. This may be accomplished by tilting the tool either by means of a canted nose to cause the tool to pivot about point 46 (Figs. 5 and 6) or by a canted shoulder on the collar. The pin may also be broken off by a localized radial compressive stress, caused by an added construction on the anvil, acting with a direct pull.

Each groove 30 (Fig. 1) along the shank of the pin has the same minimum diameter to form "a series of frangible breaknecks." This series of breaknecks permits sheets of various thicknesses to be secured together, since their total thickness will bring one of the breaknecks adjacent the outer end of the collar to be broken off. The ribs 32 (Fig. 1) between the breaknecks are of the maximum diameter of the shank to seat snugly into the opening of the sheet and to be engaged by the jaws of the tool means or by the collar when it has been swaged into the breaknecks.

The counts of the interference correspond to the four claims of the Looker patent and were copied by Egnot at the time his application was filed nearly twelve

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

months after the Looker patent issued. Count 1 is reproduced as representative:

1. The combination of a plurality of rigid members each having an opening therethrough of a common uniform diameter, said members being adapted to be abutted with said openings aligned, each of said members being of at least a given minimum individual thickness and the combined thickness of said members being within the range of thicknesses extending from a given minimum total thickness to a given maximum total thickness, and a fastening means to extend through said aligned openings to cooperate with a deformable collar for interconnecting the members, said fastening means comprising a pin with a shank and a head on one end of the shank, said shank having a substantially uniform maximum diameter throughout and having a series of axially spaced circumferential grooves, each providing the minimum diameter of the shank and forming a series of frangible breaknecks and forming therebetween spaced ribs of said maximum diameter to seat snugly in any of said openings and to be engaged by said collar by swaging of the collar into the breaknecks, said series of breaknecks extending from the second end of the pin to at least a point spaced from said head by said given minimum total thickness so that the collar will engage a rib of the pin adjacent a plurality of the members of said given minimum total thickness as well as adjacent any plurality of said members of greater total thickness within said range, the spacing of said ribs being substantially less than said given minimum individual thickness so that when said series of breaknecks extend through any of said members at least one of the ribs will lie between the planes of the opposite faces of such members to maintain said openings of the members in alignment, said shank being of a length substantially greater than said given maximum total thickness plus the axial dimension of said collar whereby the shank may extend through a plurality of said members of said given maximum total thickness and through and beyond said collar to be engaged by tool means and whereby in securing together any plurality of said members of a total thickness within said range, the shank may be broken off at a breakneck immediately adjacent the outer end of said collar. Emphasis added.

At the outset, it is pertinent to note that Egnot is here making claim to an invention previously claimed in a patent to Looker. The Looker patent was granted April 11, 1961. On March 28, 1962 Egnot filed his application presenting the claims in issue, accompanied by a letter applying the claims to the disclosure of his application.

Under such circumstances Egnot is charged with the burden of proving priority of invention beyond a reasonable doubt. Conner v. Joris, 241 F.2d 944, 44 CCPA 772; Walker v. Altorfer, 111 F.2d 164, 27 CCPA 1130.

Egnot worked for Huck Manufacturing Company of Detroit from 1952 or 1953 until September 1962 as a sales engineer. Looker, who was sales manager of the company, became vice-president in charge of sales in 1954, leaving the company in August 1956 and moving to California where he became president and one of the principal owners of the Brown-Line Corporation, his assignee. The witness Dobbe, director of Government Technical Services for Huck, preceded Looker as vice-president in charge of sales. Egnot bases his claim to priority on a drawing which he made and disclosed to Looker and Dobbe in 1954.

Egnot Exhibit 1 is a copy of a patent³ assigned to Huck which is representative of the prior art in the lockbolt field. This patent discloses a lockbolt in which the shank has three types of grooves. Near the head are "locking grooves," a grooved portion having annular ribs and groove bottoms into which the collar is swaged. At the end of the shank are "pull grooves," a grooved portion adapted to be gripped by jaws of the tool used to pull the pin and collar into place. Between these sets of grooves is a single "breakneck groove" where the end of the pin is broken off by increased pull. The breakneck groove has a smaller diameter than the other grooves, and is the minimum diameter of the shank of the pin. The patent states that it "is the weakest part of the pin so that the pin will break under tension at this location before it will break under tension at any other location."

As to the function of a breakneck groove, Egnot testified:

Considering all forces of the tool, the swaging of the collar, the breakneck was determined by engineering at Huck to break at a higher load value in tension so that after swaging you would increase the pulling effect on the pin tail section and then a break would occur at the top or in that portion called No. 21 breakneck, leaving a fastner without a pin tail section. Relative to the engineering at Huck,

Looker on cross-examination more specifically described the characteristics of a breakneck groove:

A breakneck groove is an annular recess designed to break at a predetermined force, is characterized by exacting design of its diameter with relation to the other diameters and dimensions of the pin itself, its sloped surface angles, the metallurgy of the pin per se, that is, its brittleness, ductility, tensile strength, modules of elasticity, et cetera, and as such is distinctly characterized from the grooves more commonly known as locking grooves or pull grooves.

The Huck patent discloses that the breakneck groove therein would permit only a limited variation in the total thickness of the plates to be secured together. If the plates were appreciably thinner than shown in Huck figure 2, in the finished lockbolt the end of the pin would extend an undesirable distance beyond the end of the collar. If much thicker than shown, the breakneck would be an undesirable distance within the collar.

Egnot Exhibit 3 is the drawing which is the basis for Egnot's claim to priority. Egnot testified that he completed the drawing on October 8, 1954 and submitted it to Looker and Dobbe on October 18, 1954. When asked about the drawing of Exhibit 3, Egnot stated that his first concept was an "all-grip lockbolt" so that "it would attach thin sheets as well as thick sheets in one operation." It is noted that all of the grooves shown in Egnot Exhibit 3 are of the same construction designed to function as pull grooves in cooperation with the jaws of a tool, or locking grooves in cooperation with a deformable collar, and that the grooves are uniformly spaced from the head to the end of the shank. This being so, there is no groove of...