General Electric Co. v. De Forest Radio Co.
Decision Date | 11 November 1930 |
Docket Number | No. 3799-3801.,3799-3801. |
Citation | 44 F.2d 931 |
Parties | GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. v. DE FOREST RADIO CO. (two cases). DE FOREST RADIO CO. v. GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
Howson & Howson, of New York City, and William G. Mahaffy, of Wilmington, Del. (Ralph B. Evans, of Philadelphia, Pa., Hubert Howson, of New York City, and Albert G. Davis and Charles McClair, both of Schenectady, N. Y., of counsel), for appellant.
Ward Gray, & Ward, of Wilmington, Del. (Thomas G. Haight, of Jersey City, N. J., and Samuel E. Darby, Jr., Carl A. Richmond, and William R. Ballard, all of New York City, of counsel), for appellee.
Before BUFFINGTON, WOOLLEY and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.
In the court below the General Electric Company charged the De Forest Radio Company with the infringement of four patents. On final hearing that court held one of the patents valid and infringed and the other three invalid. By appropriate steps its so holding was brought before this court for review. Without entering into detail, we may say that, save as to patent No. 1,558,436, the reasoning, conclusion, and decree of the court below commend themselves to us, and we affirm the same. In the case of patent No. 1,558,436, we feel the court below committed error in holding the patent invalid and dismissing the bill.
As usual in litigation over a patent of great commercial value, the vast mass of expert speculation, the protracted argument covering days, and with briefs that in the aggregate covered several hundred pages, the case, on reargument, narrowed to the simple question of the patent paternity of what is known commercially as the Langmuir tube. The court below held the tube had no patent paternity, and to that question we now address ourselves. The subject-matter of the patent and the general features of the pertinent art are set forth at length in the comprehensive opinion of the judge below, and by reference thereto we avoid the necessity of present restatement.
Laying aside for the present technical language and scientific discussion, and confining ourselves to simple statement, the Langmuir tube is a tube in which, for example, the gaseous conductor incident to a Fleming valve and a De Forest audion is dispensed with and a vacuum substituted therefor.
In the patent sued on, No. 1,558,436, granted October 20, 1925, to Irving Langmuir, assignor to the General Electric Company for "electrical discharge apparatus and process of preparing and using the same," the specification states:
Existing objectionable incidents to the use of gassy tubes and the erratic, nondeterminable action of gas are pointed out as follows:
Describing the De Forest audion, and differentiating it from the alleged invention of the patent, the specification says:
Describing the Fleming valve and its limitations, the specification states:
Referring to high voltage, the specification makes this statement:
"No prior hot cathode devices are known to me operating with currents as great as above 5 milliamperes with voltages as high as about 200 volts; indeed no prior discharge devices are known to me operating in a practically usable manner and without substantial positive ionization effects with currents as great as about one-tenth of a milliampere with voltages as high as about forty volts."
Specifying some of the differences and advantages of the alleged invention, the specification states:
Referring to the evacuation of the tube, the specification sets forth:
Claim 12, which is, "An electrical discharge device, comprising a gas-tight-envelope, an electronemitting cathode, an anode deprived of ionizable gas and a discharge controlling conductor, the space in the envelope being evacuated to a pressure not substantially in excess of a few hundred thousandths of a millimeter of mercury, said device being characterized by the fact that when operated below saturation and materially above the ionization voltages, the current is controlled by space charge substantially unaffected by positive ionization," is typical in character of the alleged invention.
Does the defendant use a tube answering this general description? We think it does, and that in giving up the old gaseous tube and using one of the "very high vacuum," a change which it announced in its statements to the public, we have a virtual admission of the essential difference between the two tubes. The tube of this disclosure is aptly described as "non gaseous" and "of a very high vacuum" by the defendant when putting it on the market, as follows:
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