Haynes Stellite Co. v. Chesterfield

• Decision Date: 08 November 1927
• Docket Number: No. 4645.,4645.
• Citation: 22 F.2d 635
• Parties: HAYNES STELLITE CO. v. CHESTERFIELD et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

22 F.2d 635 (1927)

HAYNES STELLITE CO. v. CHESTERFIELD et al.

No. 4645.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

November 8, 1927.

Chas. Neave, of New York City (Maxwell Barus, of New York City, on the brief), for appellant.

Ridsdale Ellis and Chas. W. Hills, both of Chicago, Ill. (Chas. W. Hills, Jr., of Chicago, Ill., and Myron J. Dikeman, of Detroit, Mich., on the brief), for appellees.

Before DENISON and MOORMAN, Circuit Judges, and GORE, District Judge.

DENISON, Circuit Judge.

This is the usual infringement suit, based upon patent No. 1,057,423, issued April 1, 1913, to Ellwood Haynes for a metal alloy. The patented article in its commercial form is called stellite, and the suit was brought by the manufacturing company, which owns the patent, against the makers of a more or less similar alloy, called by the trade-name "Chesterfield." The District Court thought that the patent sued upon was invalid as to the broader claims, and as to the narrower ones, if valid, was not infringed. Both parties find the utility of their alloys in the field of machine tools, which are used upon lathes or similar machines for cutting and shaping iron or steel parts. There is no great difficulty in making a suitable cutting tool of ordinary steel, so long as it is so used that, because of slow speed or for other reasons, it does not develop much heat; but when such a tool runs at higher speed, and gets hot, it becomes soft and useless. To meet this difficulty the art, some 25 or 30 years ago, developed what was called high-speed steel. This could be made so hard by a heat treatment that it would maintain its cutting edge fairly well up to a temperature of about 600 degrees. This enabled tools made of it to be run at about twice the speed possible with ordinary steel; but, when about this temperature was reached, the efficiency rapidly fell off and soon ceased. It was then necessary that the tool be retreated and rehardened before it could be used again.

Nothing better for this purpose than this high-speed steel was in use or was practically known when Haynes devised the patented alloy. It was a ternary compound, composed (in the specific form now involved) of the easily fusible metal cobalt and the refractory metals chromium and tungsten. The proportions were to be varied as directed in the specifications, but for use as machine tools it was recommended that the tungsten be not less than 25 per cent. nor more than 50 per cent. of the whole, that the chromium be 15 per cent., and the remainder be cobalt. This alloy, in this recommended form, was put upon the market by Haynes and his company, and, either in the original or in a slightly modified form, it and similar compositions have superseded everything else for many classes of metal cutting operations. In suitable applications, the use of this alloy permits double the speed possible with the best high-speed steel, and its utility, translated into money savings from speed of operations in all branches of metal manufacture, is rightly characterized by counsel as stupendous. Its novel characteristic, as compared with its only initial competitor — high-speed steel — is called "red hardness," meaning that, although red hot, it will retain its cutting capacity, while the steel in the same situation becomes "red soft." This quality of red hardness, from the degree of about 600 up to about 1000 (centigrade) was entirely novel in any commercial existing alloys, and the stated ternary compound was unknown to the art, and so was itself novel, unless by the effect of the items to be mentioned. We do not overlook that existing compositions had some cutting capacity, even at a low red heat; but they did not have a high, or even valuable, efficiency over much, if any, of the abovestated temperature range.

Haynes' specification shows that the invention in its broadest aspect consisted in uniting cobalt with any two of the metals of the chromium group. This group was said to comprise chromium, tungsten, molybdenum, and uranium. The specification gives particular attention to chromium and tungsten, and claim 8 calls for "a metal alloy composed of cobalt, chromium, and tungsten in the proportion of from 5 per cent. to 60 per cent. of tungsten, the remainder of the alloy being cobalt and chromium." This claim is infringed, if any one is. We see no practical occasion for considering the validity of claims which might be satisfied by other metals of the chromium group, although, since tungsten stands in the specification as the equivalent of other metals of the group, we are required to observe the supposed anticipations which refer to the group, regardless of specific mention of tungsten or chromium. We turn to these supposed anticipating or limiting instances.

A former patent of Haynes is much relied upon. By his patent No. 1,299,404 he covered his invention in what has come to be known as stainless steel, and by uniting with iron a relatively small quantity of chromium and a trifle of carbon he produced an alloy which was ductile enough to be forged into table knives and similar articles, but was highly resistant to the corrosion which affects common iron and steel. This had great commercial success, and the patent was sustained in American Co. v. Ludlum Steel Co. (C. C. A.) 290 F. 103. In an earlier effort to make an alloy of the same class, which would be ductile enough for the same uses, but which yet should take a high polish and be immune to stain, Haynes developed two patents, one of which called for a composition of nickel and chromium, or some other metal of the chromium group, and the other of which described a composition of cobalt and chromium or some other metal of...