George Cutter Co. v. Metropolitan Electric Mfg. Co., 259.

• Decision Date: 23 June 1921
• Docket Number: 259.
• Parties: GEORGE CUTTER CO. v. METROPOLITAN ELECTRIC MFG. CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

275 F. 158

GEORGE CUTTER CO. v. METROPOLITAN ELECTRIC MFG. CO.

No. 259.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

June 23, 1921

C. P Goepel, of New York City, for appellant.

Drury W. Cooper and Thomas J. Byrne, both of New York City, for appellee.

Before WARD, ROGERS, and MANTON, Circuit Judges.

MANTON Circuit Judge.

The suit involves four patents: No. 920,490, issued May 4, 1909; No. 931,464, issued August 17, 1909; No. 936,252, issued October 5, 1909; and No. 1,137,413, issued April 27, 1915-- all for metering panel boards for electric power distribution.

The injunction complained of involves only patent No. 920,490 to one McWilliams, and for the purpose of this appeal it will be necessary to consider only such patent. Claims 1, 5, 6, 9 and 10 of the patent here considered were held valid and infringed in the Seventh circuit. Beachey et al. v McWilliams, 224 F. 717, 140 C.C.A. 257. Infringement is admitted. The requirement for the improvement of the art which this invention covers grew out of the requirements of office buildings and apartment houses where tenants pay for electricity consumed in lighting their respective premises. For a single tenant occupying the entire building the incoming wires running through a single meter are registered. All the energy consumed and the necessity of distribution so as to record the proper charges, is not presented in such case. Where there is more than one tenant in a building, a plurality of meters are required. From time to time there are changes made by the tenants in rearranging suites or lofts in buildings, and with it must follow changes in the circuits between each meter and the varying number of lamps whose currents are registered by it from time to time. Convenience and need for inspection require a common location for all the meters, and some mounting for the meter ends of the consumption circuits that should eliminate the time and trouble otherwise required to identify and register the wiring of the circuits to the several respective meters, as their requirements increase or diminish. It was found more economical in congested districts, where the area served by a central station is small, to generate direct currents and to distribute them through three wires. This gave rise to what is known as the three-wire system of distribution in large cities. This added connections at the place where the meters were located. The object of the invention is stated as follows:

'The object of the invention is to facilitate the interchanging of the consumption circuits with the meter circuits so that any consumption circuit may be readily connected to any meter, and as many consumption circuits as desired may be readily connected to any one meter.

'It is also an object to provide a compact, economical metering panel board usable in connection with such a system.'

There are six consumption circuits and six meters accommodated on the device, which comprises a base consisting of a slab A of marble or other suitable insulating material, upon which are mounted, first, the three terminals of a three-wire circuit, a, b, c; second, the terminals for six meters, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, and h6, two for each meter, and therefore twelve in all; third, three 'bus bars,' d, e, f, connected to the meter terminals, the third or neutral bus bar, f, having downward extensions, f1 and f2, at the sides; fourth, a series of stationary metal strips or conductors, six in number, i1 to i6. They, like the extensions f1 and f2, extend longitudinally of the board, and each is connected to one of the several pairs of the meter-circuit terminals h1 to h6. Fifth, along the lower half of the right and left hand edges of the board are permanently mounted the pairs of consumption circuit terminals k1 to k6, each of which is adapted for connecting with an electric circuit extending to a room or other portion of an apartment or floor of a building. Each of these pairs of terminals is connected to the neutral base board extension f1 to f2, while its mate is connected to one of a series of six laterally conducting strips j1 to j6. These strips constitute the sixth group of instruments comprising the device, and they may be mounted on the opposite side of the insulating slab for the meter bars i1 to i6, or they may be otherwise separated therefrom. But in either location provision is made for connecting any consumption circuit bar j1 to j6 with any meter bar i1 to i6, and such means is shown as a plug or screw which penetrates holes provided in each at the point of superposition. That is, some or all of the lighting circuits may be connected with any meter by the simple act of plugging in the plugs or screws. The patent provides that the consumption circuit bars are mounted in staggered relation. The advantages referred to are as follows: 'By referring to the drawings it will be noted that one set of conductor bars is arranged alternately so that one bar leads to a terminal at one edge of the board while the next adjacent bar leads to a terminal at the opposite edge of the board. It will also be noted that in the preferred form these terminals include fuses and switches. The advantage in this alternate arrangement is that it affords double the area for the terminal connections for any given length of board, and consequently shortens the vertical conductor bars, and the board itself. Terminals consisting of switches are considerably wider than the conductor bars, and an ordinary board, to accommodate them, has to be much longer than it would have to be to accommodate merely the horizontal conductor bars; furthermore the vertical bars have to be very long to enable them to cross all of the horizontal bars. By my arrangement in which the terminal connections are grouped symmetrically on two sides of the vertical bars and the horizontal bars are led to them alternately, first on one side and then on the other, the vertical bars are just about half as long as they would be if grouped all on one side of the board.'

Claims 1, 5, 6, 9, and 10 are involved. The appellee refers to claim 6 as best illustrative of the claimed invention. It reads as follows:

'6. A system of electrical power distribution including consumption circuits extending from districts of consumption to a panel board, bus bars on said board connected to said consumption circuits, meter circuits, other bus bars on said board connected to said meter circuits, means for interchangeably connecting the bus bars associated with the consumption circuits with the bus bars belonging to the meter circuits, one of said sets of bus bars being provided with terminals arranged along the two edges of the board, and connected to their bars alternately, substantially as described.'

The advantages claimed are the ease of adjustment of the circuits to meters and readjustment in the hands of the most inexperienced. Such a need for adjustment arises when searching out and testing and identifying each wire with respect to the meters with which it is connected, or separating it from the tangle of wires on the conduit, or to make the proper connection of wires leading into the rooms of a particular tenant, becomes essential. When the wires leading to a tenant's apartment or suite are put upon one meter, the wires become fully identified, and are ready for instant adjustment or such care as the conditions require. The staggered arrangement of the consumption conductor bars is emphasized in the quotation above.

The answer and affidavits of the appellant interposed new defenses which were not before the court in Beachey et al. v. McWilliams, supra.

The answer pleads that the letters patent are void by reason of the fact that more than two years prior to the filing of the application for said letters patent, prior to the alleged invention thereof, there was a prior use in the United States, among other places, the Essex Hotel, in the City of New York. It is further pleaded that one Skeel, of Chicago prior to the alleged invention of the patent in suit, in fact conceived the idea of the substantial and material parts of the patent, and that what the invention covers were well known in the art prior to the time of the alleged invention. In support of this, the file wrapper of the patent in suit is attached. This was not before the court in the Seventh circuit (224 F. 717, 140 C.C.A. 257). A defense is further interposed for the reason that it is asserted that the claims in suit are invalid because they are not supported by an oath. The claim is advanced that the file wrapper and contents indicate that the original claims...