General Electric Co. v. Incandescent Products, Inc.

• Decision Date: 22 May 1922
• Parties: GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. v. INCANDESCENT PRODUCTS, Inc.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

280 F. 856

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. v. INCANDESCENT PRODUCTS, Inc.

United States District Court, D. New Jersey.

May 22, 1922

Frederick P. Fish, of Boston, Mass., Howson & Howson, of New York City and Albert G. Davis, of Schenectady, N.Y., for plaintiff.

Richard Eyre, W. N. Seligsberg, and Harvey C. Price, all of New York City, for defendant.

BODINE District Judge.

The present application is for a preliminary injunction. At the time of the argument, the plaintiff seemed so clearly entitled to its remedy that an injunction would have been immediately granted, but for the request of defendant's counsel that he be given time to file a brief.

The General Electric Company is the owner of United States letters patent dated April 18, 1916, No. 1,180,159, issued to Irving Langmuir. The defendant, a New Jersey corporation, was organized October 28, 1921, for the purpose of engaging in the general contracting business, including the manufacture of things electrical.

The scope of plaintiff's patent, so far as material to this issue, is set forth in claims 4, 5, 12, and 13 of the patent which are as follows:

4. The combination of a lamp bulb, a filling therein of dry nitrogen at a pressure materially in excess of that corresponding to 50 millimeters of mercury and a filament of tungsten of large effective diameter, the filament being thereby adapted for operation at a temperature higher than that which it would have if operated in a vacuum at an efficiency of one watt per candle.

5. An incandescent electric lamp having a filament of tungsten of large effective diameter and a bulb or globe therefor filled with dry nitrogen at a pressure as high or higher than that corresponding to 300 millimeters of mercury, the filament being thereby adapted for operation at a temperature higher than that which it would have if operated in a vacuum at an efficiency of one watt per candle.

12. In an incandescent lamp, the combination of the lamp bulb, a tungsten filament therein, and a gaseous filling, the effective diameter of the filament being sufficiently large and the heat conductivity of the filling being sufficiently poor to permit the lamp to be operated with a filament temperature in excess of that of a vacuum tungsten lamp operating at an efficiency of one watt per candle and with a length of life not less than that of such a lamp.

13. An incandescent electric lamp having a closely coiled tungsten filament, the coil giving the effect of a filament of large diameter, an inclosing bulb and a filling of gas having a materially poorer heat conductivity than hydrogen and at a pressure as high or higher than 300 millimeters of mercury the filament being adapted for operation in said gaseous filling at a temperature higher than that which it would have if operated in a vacuum at an efficiency of one watt per candle.

The validity of these particular claims was upheld in General Electric Co. v. Nitro-Tungsten Lamp Co. (D.C. Oct. 27 1919) 261 F. 606 (opinion by Judge Mayer), affirmed June 2, 1920 (C.C.A.) 266 F. 994 (opinion by Judge Hough); General Electric Co. v. Continental Lamp Co. (C.C.A.) 280 F. 846 (April 3, 1922, opinion by Judge Manton); General Electric Co. v. Alexander et al. (D.C. Oct. 29, 1921) 277 F. 290 (opinion by Judge Mayer), affirmed April 10, 1922 (C.C.A.) 280 F. 852 (opinion by Judge Hough). The corresponding British patent was upheld by the House of Lords in British Thomson- Houston Co., Ltd., v. Corona Lamp Works, Ltd., decided December 19, 1921.

The plaintiff ordinarily, having shown that the validity of its patent had been sustained in other jurisdictions, would be entitled to an injunction upon the showing of infringement. Cary v. Lovell Co. (June 12, 1885) 24 F. 141 (opinion by Judge Acheson); Edison Electric Light Co. v. Electric Mfg. Co. (C.C. July 20, 1893) 57 F. 616 (opinion by Judge Seaman); Wallerstein v. Christian Feigenspan (June 8, 1914) 215 F. 919, 132 C.C.A. 157 (opinion by Judge McPherson); Elite Pottery Co. v. Dececo (Jan. 16, 1907) 150 F. 581, 80 C.C.A. 567 (opinion by Judge Buffington).

The defendant's business is of most recent origin. Its first price list appeared the latter part of December, 1921, nor were any business steps taken by it until long after the validity of the plaintiff's patent had been sustained, after exhaustive litigation in other jurisdictions, as above indicated. The courts have written the history of incandescent electric light lamps prior to the Langmuir invention. See the opinion of Judge Lacombe in Edison Electric Light Case (1892) 52 F. 300, 3 C.C.A. 831.

The Edison elements were three-- a carbon filament, in a vacuum, inclosed in a glass chamber. These elements remained the same, with refinements, until Langmuir introduced into the art, as shown by the claims in suit, a co-ordination between a coiled tungsten filament in nitrogen, argon, or mercury vapor gas, inclosed in a glass chamber under pressure. The results obtained and reasons for the success of the Langmuir invention are admirably expressed by Judge Mayer in the Nitro-Tungsten Lamp Co. Case, supra, 261 F. 607:

'The Langmuir lamp has proved extraordinarily successful. In street and display illumination it dominates the commercial field, and from the standpoint of aggregate product for use in many ways, and return in dollars and cents, the record demonstrates unquestioned commercial utility. With this indisputable success, the question is whether Langmuir has merely taken advantage of well-known facts and data to an extent within the knowledge of only a man having the qualifications of one skilled in this art, or whether the accomplishment was so advanced as to rise to invention. Langmuir is a scientist of extensive education and extraordinary ability, possessed of persistency and patience, and gifted with the kind of imagination which is valuable, when curbed by analysis. With this equipment he undertook the task, which resulted in his 'present invention,' which 'relates to improvements in incandescent electric lamps whereby it is possible to produce a lamp capable of operating at extraordinarily high efficiency and giving a light of marked increase in intrinsic brightness and whiteness.''

Prior to the Langmuir invention, it was well known to electrical engineers that an increase in temperature would increase the power of the light, but lamps to be ordinarily useful must have life as well as power. The increase in temperature would increase the evaporation of the carbon, resulting in short life and the blackening of the glass container. Experimentations carried on by Mr. Edison in the early stage of lamp building indicated that gas under pressure would retard the evaporation of the carbon filament. Experimentations, however, indicated that the gas carried away heat from the filament by convection, resulting in no gain whatsoever....