Fulton Co. v. Powers Regulator Co.

• Decision Date: 14 January 1920
• Docket Number: 137.
• Citation: 263 F. 578
• Parties: FULTON CO. v. POWERS REGULATOR CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

263 F. 578

FULTON CO. v. POWERS REGULATOR CO.

No. 137.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

January 14, 1920

A decree was entered in the District Court sustaining and finding infringement of claim 1 of patent 1,102,035, issued to plaintiff's assignor for an 'automatic tank regulator.' The only claim in suit reads thus:

'In combination, a hot water tank provided with a valve controlled heat supply conduit, a thermosensitive bulb for containing a volatile liquid and located in said tank, a vibratory vessel filled with liquid, a conduit opening into said vessel and having a trap connection with said bulb said vessel normally tending to discharge liquid into said conduit and bulb against vapor pressure in said bulb thereby maintaining said conduit filled with liquid, and connections between said vessel and valve for operating the latter.' The patent relates to a large class of devices in which the expansion and contraction of a substance inserted in a heated chamber or container furnishes a power used to open or close a valve or gate controlling the heat supply. This patentee points it out as general practice to use the thermosensitive material to actuate an auxiliary ('pilot valve') which in turn controls the admission of compressed air or water into another valve which latter device regulates the heat supply. He proposes to simplify the difficulties attending this use of auxiliary apparatus by eliminating the same and 'providing direct action between the thermostatic member and the valves controlling' the heat supply.

To accomplish this purpose he places in the heated container a thermosensitive bulb partly filled with a volatile fluid, e.g. chloroform. He then connects the thermosensitive bulb with an 'expansible and collapsible vessel' which itself is so connected with the valve controlling the heat supply that the act of collapse or expansion opens or closes said valve.

The power of the volatile liquid, vaporizing or condensing as heat increases or decreases, must of course be conducted from the bulb to the expansible vessel, and this is done 'by means of a conduit so arranged that the vapor in said bulb * * * will force liquid through the connecting conduit' into the expansible vessel, while 'at the same time the vapor itself is prevented from passing from the bulb to' said vessel.

The patentee avers that his construction 'retains the vapor always within the bulb and utilizes the column of liquid for transmitting the pressure of the vapor from the bulb to the expansible' vessel. Thus, he concludes, he does away with the difficulties incident to difference in temperature between the two vessels and obtains a quick response by his regulator to changes in the temperature of the thermosensitive bulb.

It is admitted that thermosensitive bodies of many kinds were old in this art of heat container regulation; and that what the patent calls an expansible vessel was, if not old in the particular form described, not new in kind, and is unimportant in this litigation. What is important is the connection or 'conduit' between the thermosensitive bulb and the external heat controlling apparatus.

This connection is described as a 'small flexible pipe.' It is obviously flexible only from the exterior of the heated container to the entrance of the 'expansible and collapsible vessel'; but it is continuous from the bottom of the thermosensitive bulb to and into the expansible vessel, and that part of the connection or conduit within the bulb is a rigid tube terminating in a hook or crook so placed that the end of the tube, conduit, or connection must always be close to one side of the thermosensitive bulb, to the end that the aperture terminating the tube will always be underneath the volatile fluid if the bulb containing the same is properly placed.

For several years prior to application filed for this patent, defendant (a concern long engaged in the manufacture of appliance of this general kind) had made and offered for sale its 'Tank Regulator No. 8.' This prior art device exhibits a bulb containing volatile liquid projecting from the heated container and rigidly connected by a tube or passageway of small diameter and said to be about an inch long, with a 'collapsible and expansible vessel.' There is no trapping arrangement, no pipe, or tube within the bulb, and it is probably much easier for vapor rather than liquid to be forced by rising heat into the expansible vessel than in plaintiff's machine.

After devices manufactured under the patent in suit had become known, defendant made and sold tank regulators wherein the thermosensitive bulb was connected with the expansible vessel by a flexible tube; that tube, however, does not continue into the bulb, but the bulb itself is so placed in the heated container or tank as to be horizontal, wherefore there 'will be trapping of the vapor until the bulb is half empty of its liquid. ' This last statement assumes that the bulb's orifice is centered.

This construction was thought to infringe, and action was brought. The court below found both validity and infringement, and from decree accordingly this appeal was taken.

Charles Neave, of Boston, Mass., for appellant.

Ralph Lane Scott, of New York City (S. T. Cameron, W. B. Kerkam, and Loyd H. Sutton, all of Washington, D.C., of counsel), for appellee.

Before WARD, ROGERS, and HOUGH, Circuit Judges.

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

We are told by evidence that use has shown three marked advantages in plaintiff's patented apparatus: (1) Utilizing a flexible connection dispenses with rigid, accurate, and expensive pipe-fitting; (2) the passage of volatile fluid through a long tube external to the heated chamber cools it; and (3) a thermosensitive bulb containing a trap effectually prevents anything but liquid as distinguished from vapor pressing upon the diaphragm of the collapsible member.

It is unnecessary to say whether we accept this evidence in its entirety or not. The point is that on these facts an argument is based to the effect that, since these beneficial uses were inherent in the patented device, the claim in suit should and indeed must, be read so as to cover any apparatus which obtains the same beneficial and useful...