Gat Gun Lubricating Corp. v. Adams Grease Gun Corp.

• Citation: 59 F.2d 184
• Decision Date: 06 June 1932
• Docket Number: No. 403.,403.
• Parties: GAT GUN LUBRICATING CORPORATION et al. v. ADAMS GREASE GUN CORPORATION.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit)

59 F.2d 184 (1932)

GAT GUN LUBRICATING CORPORATION et al. v. ADAMS GREASE GUN CORPORATION.

No. 403.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

June 6, 1932.

Lynn A. Williams, of Chicago, Ill., Stephen H. Philbin and Fish Richardson & Neave, all of New York City, and Williams, Bradbury, McCaleb & Hinkle, of Chicago, Ill., for appellants.

Henry T. Hornidge, Alfred W. Kiddle, William J. Dowd, and Kiddle, Margeson & Hornidge, all of New York City, for appellee.

Before L. HAND, SWAN, and AUGUSTUS N. HAND, Circuit Judges.

L. HAND, Circuit Judge.

The patent in suit is for a portable "grease gun" to drive grease, more or less viscous, through the bearings of an automobile or other similar machine. There had been other such before, but the invented improvements were designed to set up much higher pressures. The "gun" is made up of two parts, a cylinder with a reciprocating plunger, and a receptacle for holding the grease, mounted upon the cylinder at right angles, detachably, so that it may be taken off and filled and then remounted. It communicates by a port with the cylinder, which the grease fills, as described in a moment. After the cylinder is filled, the plunger, normally held in withdrawn position by a spring, may be manually advanced. Its first action is to close the port, leaving no outlet in the cylinder except into the lubricating system through a check-valve. The cylinder and plunger are so designed as to set up very high pressures; this by means of a pistol grip not necessary to describe, since the claim in suit does not involve it and the defendant does not use it. Some means is obviously necessary to secure the entrance of the grease from the receptacle to the cylinder and this is the nub of the case at bar. The reciprocation of the plunger, which creates some vacuum in the cylinder, will at times effect this, but it is not reliable. Hence it is necessary to supplement its action positively in the receptacle itself. This is done by a piston actuated by a spring which bears at one end upon the rear end of the receptacle, and at the other upon the rear face of the piston. As the piston is carried by a rod which passes through the rear end of the receptacle, it may be withdrawn, compressing the spring in its course. At the end of its traverse the rod is held by a latch on the outside of the receptacle, which engages in a notch in the rod and holds the piston at the rear end, leaving open the receptacle to be filled. After filling it is reattached to the cylinder and the latch released. The spring thereafter presses the piston against the grease, thus assuring a continuous flow into the cylinder until the receptacle is emptied.

Claim two, the only one in suit, is as follows:

"2. A lubricating device comprising a cylinder having a bore and an inlet port and a discharge passage, a plunger reciprocating within said bore, a lubricant receptacle attached to and depending from said cylinder and having its interior communicating with said bore through said inlet port, a spring actuated piston within said receptacle for feeding the lubricant within the receptacle through said inlet port into said bore of the cylinder, means for locking said piston against movement in the said receptacle, and means connected to said plunger and cylinder for reciprocating said plunger within the bore to withdraw the lubricant from said receptacle into said bore and eject the lubricant from the bore through the discharge passage."

The supposed infringement is so like the disclosure in respect of the cylinder and plunger as to be clearly an infringement, for, although it does not work with a pistol grip, and the plunger is not automatically withdrawn by a spring, the claim in suit does not contain those features, as we have already said. It has also a receptacle, set at right angles to the cylinder, to which the grease is admitted by a port which the plunger closes at the beginning of its advance. But the mechanism by which the grease is driven out of the receptacle is different, and it is upon this that the defendant relies for its defence. The receptacle contains a piston, it is true, mounted upon a rod which projects through its rear end; but the piston may be fairly described as merely cushioned. It is made up of three parts; first, there is the piston proper which slides upon the rod, being held from moving off its end by a nut; next is a spring, bearing at its forward end upon the rear face of the piston; finally, a collar, made fast to the rod, acts as the other abutment of the spring and holds it under substantial compression even after the piston proper abuts upon the nut. The three members as a whole constitute a cushioned piston, which has no proper motion of its own in the receptacle. To move it the rod must be...