Hartog v. Long, Patent Appeal No. 2608.

• Decision Date: 25 February 1931
• Docket Number: Patent Appeal No. 2608.
• Parties: HARTOG v. LONG et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals (CCPA)

18 CCPA 993, 47 F.2d 365 (1931)

HARTOG v. LONG et al.

Patent Appeal No. 2608.

Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.

February 25, 1931.

Wm. L. Symons, of Washington, D. C. (Bacon & Thomas, of Washington, D. C., of counsel), for appellant.

Wm. C. McCoy, of Cleveland, Ohio (Jas. A. Hoffman, of Washington, D. C., and Evans & McCoy, of Cleveland, Ohio, of counsel), for appellees.

Before GRAHAM, Presiding Judge, and BLAND, HATFIELD, GARRETT, and LENROOT, Associate Judges.

BLAND, Associate Judge.

This is an appeal in an interference case by Hartog from the decision of the Board of Appeals of the Patent Office, awarding priority of invention in two counts of an interference to appellee Gulick. Appellee Long did not appeal in this case, and the issue is between Hartog and Gulick.

When the case was first presented to this court it involved two counts, 1 and 2, and Hartog, as to the first count, contended that Gulick had no right to make the claim and that he (Hartog) had no right to make the claim, and that the claim was not patentable. Upon this ground Hartog moved to dissolve the interference, which motion was overruled. Since, under the circumstances of this case, patentability is not to be considered by this court, appellant at the hearing dismissed his appeal as to count 1. The patentability of count 1 will no doubt receive due consideration in the Patent Office.

The only issue presented in this case, as it now stands, is whether or not Gulick had the right to make the claim.

Count 2 reads as follows:

"2. A piston having a head with top and side walls in combination with a guide structure connected thereto and comprising diametrically opposite cylinder-engaging parts formed with air spaces between their upper edges and the bottom edge of the side wall of the head, wrist pin bosses between the cylinder-engaging parts, and means joining said bosses and cylinder-engaging parts together, the said joining means being resiliently yieldable and arranged not to engage the cylinder." (Italics appellant's.)

The subject-matter of the invention here in issue relates to pistons for internal combustion engines. Each of the parties sought to produce a piston that could be fitted to the engine cylinder with a minimum of clearance and that could be operated without binding when the same would expand from heat. Both structures, therefore, were provided with a piston skirt that would be flexible and would on account of the flexibility yield to pressure occasioned by expansion. The desired flexibility or resiliency of the skirt of the piston in both structures is obtained by separating the skirt portion of the piston from the head of the same and by slitting the skirt portion longitudinally with its axis. The skirt portion is connected to the head portion by webs placed inside the hollow portion of the piston and projecting downwardly from the head. Wrist pin bosses are connected to the skirt by the webs. Without the aid of a drawing a detailed description of the structure of the two pistons involved would not be helpful, and no attempt to describe the same in detail will be made here except as to the particular portions of the structures directly involved in this controversy.

It is first contended by Hartog that Gulick's guide structure does not meet the term "comprising diametrically opposite cylinder engaging parts." In this we think appellant is in error since the combination in Gulick certainly has cylinder engaging parts which are diametrically opposite to each other — that is to say, there are parts of the skirt of the piston which engage the cylinder and which are opposite each other. Hartog argues that since Gulick has but one slit, there is, therefore, but one cylinder engaging part in Gulick's disclosure. This part of the count must be read in...