Hart-Carter Co. v. JP Burroughs & Son, Inc.
| Decision Date | 09 January 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 76-40143.,76-40143. |
| Citation | 605 F. Supp. 1327 |
| Parties | HART-CARTER COMPANY a corporation, and Cea Carter-Day Company, a corporation, Plaintiffs, v. J.P. BURROUGHS & SON, INC., a corporation, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan |
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Richard G. Smith, Bay City, Mich., Charles W. Rummler, William A. Snow, Chicago, Ill., for Hart-Carter.
Gilbert A. Deibel, Saginaw, Mich., Roger W. Herrell, Philadelphia, Pa., for J.P. Burroughs.
Plaintiff, Hart-Carter Company (hereinafter Hart-Carter), is a Delaware Corporation. Plaintiff, CEA Carter-Day Company (hereinafter Carter-Day) is a Minnesota Corporation having a principal office and place of business in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hart-Carter which manufactures and sells grain dryers on behalf of Hart-Carter. Hart-Carter and Carter-Day are referred herein as Plaintiffs.
Defendant, J.P. Burroughs & Son, Inc., is a Michigan Corporation established in Saginaw, Michigan. It manufactures agricultural equipment including grain dryers through its manufacturing division (previously known as A.T. Ferrell) known as Ferrell-Ross, Inc. (hereinafter Ferrell-Ross) with its principal facilities at Saginaw, Michigan.
This is an action for patent infringement. The patent-in-suit is U.S. Patent No. 3,629,954, issued December 28, 1971, to Hart-Carter as assignee of James P. Lavalier, and entitled "Gravity Flow Grain Dryer." This patent was issued on an application of James P. Lavalier filed in the U.S. Patent Office on September 26, 1968. Plaintiffs' date of conception of the invention was July 7, 1967.
Jurisdiction of this Court arises under the Patent Statutes of the United States and under Title 28, U.S.C. Section 1338.
Venue is laid in this District under 28 U.S.C. Sections 1391(c) and 1400(b).
After harvesting, grains cannot be stored for extended periods without suffering severe deterioration from the moisture content of the grain at the time of and immediately after harvest. Therefore it has long been necessary and common practice in the grain industry to dry grains to an acceptable moisture content before storage. To remove excessive moisture from the grain, grain dryers are used to reduce the moisture content of the grain to a level known from experience to be below the level at which deterioration occurs.
Gravity flow grain dryers as involved here are comprised essentially of an elevated garner for holding grain to be dried, and one or more vertical grain columns having perforate walls (walls with holes in them smaller than the grain). These grain columns receive grain continuously from the garner. This grain, by gravity flow, proceeds through grain treating sections or zones, wherein the grain is subjected to air flow at different temperature and humidity conditions for removing excessive moisture from the grain and then cooling the grain preparatory to storage. A mechanism is provided at the bottom of the vertical grain columns for removing the dried grain and for determining the rate of flow of grain through the grain columns and hence through the dryer.*
Common to all gravity flow grain dryers pertinent to this litigation (i.e., the dryer of the patent-in-suit, the accused dryers of the Defendant, and the various prior art dryers in evidence) is the vertical grain columns that extend from the grain inlet to the grain outlet. These columns may be arbitrarily divided into two or more grain treating zones or sections. A complete dryer simply utilizes various auxiliary equipment and structures, such as heaters, blowers, air ducts and the housing, for moving treated air (heated, reheated or unheated) into and out of contact with the grain flowing by gravity through the grain column.
To dry the descending grain in the grain column evenly, it was common in the prior art to direct hot, drying air through the grain alternately from one side and then the other. This technique, often referred to as "air reversal" was employed in U.S. Patent No. 1,151,268 of Hess, which issued in 1915.
As used in the vertically-arranged grain dryers with multiple grain columns and several treating zones where drying air passes in a generally horizontal direction through the grain columns, the term "air reversal" refers to a 180° change in air direction effected through the grain column in different treating zones of the dryer. Air reversal may be effected between drying zones or between cooling zones, or between a drying zone and a cooling zone.
As used by Lavalier in the patent-in-suit and in his deposition, the terms "countercurrent" and "counterflow" are synonymous with the term "air reversal."
To retain and utilize heat contained in drying air that had passed through the grain column and which would otherwise be lost to atmosphere in the exhaust gases, it was common knowledge, as well as common practice in the grain dryer industry, to re-use or re-circulate those exhaust gases to improve the energy efficiency of grain dryers; that is, to reduce the amount of heat energy required to heat the circulated air to a temperature to dry the moist grain. The process of recirculating air to capture its heat is referred to as "air recirculation."
In employing air recirculation in grain dryers, highly and fully saturated or moisture laden air emanating from the top or upper zone or zones of the dryer should be exhausted directly to atmosphere, while exhaust air emanating from the lower heater and cooler zones was useful in air recirculation as such air was not as moisture laden as the air that had passed through the upper zone or zones of the dryer and initially contacted the wettest grain. As used in the vertical grain dryer industry therefore, and specifically those with one or more vertical grain columns extending through multiple treating zones, the term "air recirculation" refers to a technique in which treating air that has passed through the grain column in a zone or zones of a heater, and has already performed its treating function, then is heated or re-heated for re-use in a heater zone of the grain dryer. This required the return of a portion of the exhaust air to the intake of the heater or heater fan. The purpose of recirculation is to capture the heat contained in the exhaust air and thus use less energy to heat that air to the desired temperature before forcing it again through the grain column.
Plaintiff's Shanzer dryer, is a simple two zone gravity flow dryer composed of a pair of vertical grain columns extending through a single upper heater zone and a single lower cooling zone. A first blower forced hot, drying air through the grain columns in the heater zone to dry the grain, and a second blower forced air at ambient temperature through the columns in the lower cooler zone to cool the grain. Both the hot drying air, and the cooling air (that becomes warm while cooling the grain in the cooling zone) were exhausted directly to atmosphere, and thus all heat energy in such exhaust air was lost. The Shanzer dryer thus did not employ the features of air recirculation or air reversal, although both features were well known to insure a more uniform drying of the grain.
A more advanced, prior art, gravity flow grain dryer is disclosed in U.S. Patent 1,151,268 of Hess, issued August 24, 1915. The Hess dryer was a commercially successful grain dryer. Plaintiffs later bought the grain dryer operations of the Hess Company. The Hess patent shows a three-treating zone, gravity flow grain dryer having four vertically extending grain columns. Cross sections of the dryer, taken through each of the three treating zones, are illustrated in Figs. 4, 5 and 6 of the patent. These drawings show the use of air reversal between the zones for promoting more uniform drying of the grain across the grain columns. (This air reversal is shown also in U.S. Patent No. 1,210,166 of Hess, issued December 26, 1916.) Separate heaters are provided at the inlets of the two upper zones to provide different drying temperatures in these heater zones. Outside air is drawn through the bottom or cooling zone, the temperature of that air being raised substantially as it cools the hot, dried grain passing through the cooling zone. The air after passing through the cooling zone is drawn into the intake of the blower and heated by the heaters in the two heater zones before it is blown through the grain in those heater zones. This reheating of air that has previously been used in the cooler zone of the dryer constitutes a form of air recirculation, which conserves heat.
Another commercial prior art, gravity flow grain dryer is the Ellis dryer, the subject of U.S. Patent No. 1,127,974, issued February 9, 1915.
Like Hess, Ellis divided his grain columns into zones, two drying zones and one cooling zone. To afford improved uniformity of drying and cooling of the grain, Ellis employed a unique form of air reversal. Also, in the interest of energy conservation, Ellis employed air recirculation, which has the heated air that had passed through the middle or lower heater section combined with the cooler air that had passed through the lowest or cooler section. This combined treating air from the outlets of Ellis' second and third treating sections or zones (counting from the top down) was pulled into the fan, heated by a heater, and then passed through the upper two heater sections of the grain dryers (that air passing through the uppermost heater section exhausting to atmosphere, and that air passing through the lower heater section recirculated as hereinbefore described).
The recirculated air, particularly from the lower heater section, contains moisture picked up from the grain and that moisture serves to prevent "cracking" or "blistering" of the cool grain, which enters the grain dryer and is suddenly...
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