Gordon Form Lathe Co. v. Walcott Machine Co.
| Decision Date | 22 July 1927 |
| Docket Number | No. 1644.,1644. |
| Citation | 20 F.2d 673 |
| Parties | GORDON FORM LATHE CO. v. WALCOTT MACHINE CO. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan |
John W. Michael, of Milwaukee, Wis., and F. O. Richey, of Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiff.
J. L. Stackpole, of Boston, Mass., Otis A. Earl, of Kalmazoo, Mich., and H. L. Kirkpatrick, of Boston, Mass., for defendant.
This is a suit brought for alleged infringement of patent No. 1,542,803, granted June 16, 1925, to the Gordon Form Lathe Company, on the application of Charles Gordon and Alfred W. Redlin, filed June 19, 1920, for a lathe. The subject of the invention may be more specifically referred to as a lathe designed for the forming and turning of irregular or nongeometrical forms, particularly the cam shafts of automobile engines. The patent in suit has twice been before the courts. Melling v. Gordon et al., 55 App. D. C. 278, 4 F.(2d) 945; Melling v. Gordon Form Lathe Company, 14 F.(2d) 437. In neither of the cases referred to was the question of patentability in the light of the prior art considered, and in neither case was the question of infringement in issue. The first case was before the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia upon appeal from the Commissioner of Patents on interference proceedings between Melling, on the one hand, and Gordon and Redlin, on the other. The second case was before the District Court of the Northern District of Ohio, and was an action to compel the issue of a patent to Melling, the plaintiff therein, under section 4915, R. S. (Compiled Statutes, § 9460). This is the first action for infringement of the patent referred to by the use of the Melling apparatus, and substantially all of the applicable defenses known to the patent law are here brought forward. The patent is challenged for want of patentable novelty, anticipation by the prior art, the inoperativeness of the patented device, and infringement is denied.
The patent in suit covers a lathe for turning irregular forms, specifically the cam shafts of automobile engines. It is a multiple or gang lathe for cutting or turning a number of cams and eccentrics on a shaft at the same time. It is sufficient to describe one unit of this multiple tool. The implement comprises a work holder, a tool carrier, which moves transversely to the axial line of the work holder, and a cutting tool, mounted and angularly movable on the carrier, automatic means for moving the carrier toward and from the work, and means for varying the angular relation of the tool to the carrier and work, to maintain proper cutting and clearance angles of the tool to work of noncircular contour. The movement of the tool carrier transversely to the work is controlled by irregular shaped cams. To keep the cutting tool always in normal relation to the work, the tool is swung upon its point as an axis, and this movement is also controlled by a properly shaped cam. Neither cam — that is, neither the cam controlling the transverse movement of the tool holder, nor the cam controlling the swinging of the cutting tool — is a replica cam; that is, one conforming in size and shape to the contour of the cam to be cut.
Prior to the Gordon and Redlin invention, irregular shaped cams of automobile shafts were ground. This was an expensive and dangerous process. In challenging the patentable novelty of the Gordon and Redlin machine, the defendant has brought before the court the result of a very full research into the prior art, and has presented a very able and thorough discussion and analysis both of the grinding art on irregularly shaped surfaces, and of the cutting or turning art as disclosed in prior patents. It would extend this opinion to unwarrantable length to discuss all of the earlier practices and patents. It is sufficient to say that the earlier devices disclosed were in the main designed to cut concentric or geometrical forms, and that the problem of cutting or turning a nongeometrical form, such as a pear-shaped cam, involved problems not present in the grinding art.
The two most pertinent citations of the prior art dealing with cutting or turning tools, are the Montreuil patent, No. 701,217, and the Brophy patent, No. 649,905. In the case of the former patent a model was submitted to the court for the purpose of showing that, with some modifications, the device disclosed by the patent could be made to do the work of the patent in suit. More persuasive, however, was the actual setting up of the Brophy machine in court, and the cutting of pear-shaped cams by means of it. The demonstration was impressive, but a careful analysis both of the Montreuil...
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...question of infringement is one of fact * * *." (Emphasis added.) Judge Simons, writing as a District Judge in Gordon Form Lathe Co. v. Walcott, 6 Cir., 20 F.2d 673, 674-675, had this to "* * * I am convinced that Gordon and Redlin were pioneers in the art of turning nongeometric forms, and......
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