Hazeltine Corporation v. Emerson Television-Radio, 253.
| Decision Date | 29 July 1942 |
| Docket Number | No. 253.,253. |
| Parties | HAZELTINE CORPORATION v. EMERSON TELEVISION-RADIO, Inc., et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Laurence B. Dodds, of New York City (Henry T. Kilburn, of New York City, of counsel), for appellant.
Darby & Darby, of New York City (Samuel E. Darby, Jr., and Floyd H. Crews, both of New York City, of counsel), for appellees.
Before SWAN, CLARK, and FRANK, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal by Hazeltine Corporation from a final decree dismissing its suit for patent infringement. Hazeltine is the owner of the Thompson patent No. 1,710,035, issued April 23, 1929, on application filed March 13, 1926, for "sound-reproducing instrument." The defendants were Emerson Television-Radio, Inc., manufacturer of the accused "Emerson" radio receivers, Emerson Radio & Phonograph Corporation, seller of them, and an individual, the determination of whose status in the litigation was postponed pursuant to stipulation. The suit was filed in August, 1934. It was not brought on for trial until February, 1941. The defenses were both invalidity and non-infringement, but the district court disposed of the case solely upon the latter ground.
The patent here involved relates to the combination of a sound producing diaphragm and its actuating mechanism with a cabinet to house them. The commercial embodiment of the invention was developed in 1925 and was placed on the market as the Thompson Minuet Receiver. A specimen thereof was put in evidence as exhibit 7. The drawings of Figures 3 and 4 in the patent application filed in March, 1926, were made from this model. It consists of a cabinet having in its front wall a circular opening through which projects the apex of a conical diaphragm which is the loud speaker. This is actuated by a magnet controlled by electrical impulses from the circuits of a radio receiver. At its base the conical diaphragm has a diameter of 11 or 12 inches. It is mounted inside the cabinet upon a support which also carries the radio receiver. The top and side walls of the cabinet have no openings but the rear wall is accoustically open, although closed against access by a metal screen which the patent refers to as a "reticulated member." At lines 93-104 of page 3 of the specifications, the patentee has summarized his invention as follows: "My said invention provides a compact structure in which the sound reproducer or large diaphragm and the apparatus or mechanism for actuating the same or for supplying energy thereto are combined to form a unitary instrument, and in which the cabinet or casing serving to enclose or house the said apparatus or mechanism is economically employed either as a reflector and baffle, or as a sound chamber and baffle or reflector combined, whereby to improve the operation of said reproducer or diaphragm."
The defendants characterize the alleged invention as merely putting "a loud speaker in a box." If this were all Thompson did, concededly it would not constitute invention. The Farrand-Godley receiver of 1924 had already done that. It placed a loud speaker of the large diaphragm type within one compartment of a cabinet and in another compartment of the same cabinet it put the radio receiver. See also patents issued to Harrison, No. 1,613,609, and to Frederick, No. 1,955,800. The De Forest receiver of 1925 also shows an attempt to combine the loud speaker and the receiver into a unitary structure of pleasing appearance, although the loud speaker and its actuating apparatus were not placed in one compartment. But no one prior to Thompson, Hazeltine urges, had conceived the idea of combining the loud speaker and its actuating mechanism with a cabinet so as to utilize the baffling and sound chamber effects of the cabinet to improve the tonal characteristics of the loud speaker, and so as to produce a unitary, compact and portable radio receiver, with the attendant reduction in manufacturing costs. It is contended that these novel and useful contributions to the art not only prove invention but entitle the patentee to a construction of his claims broad enough to cover the accused radio receivers, which utilize a smaller diaphragm, differently arranged within the cabinet and differently actuated (dynamically instead of magnetically) than did the patentee's embodiment of his invention in the Minuet receiver.
Assuming without decision the validity of the patent, we pass to a consideration of the question of infringement. The claims in suit are 1, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8. Claims 5 and 7 are relied upon as typical. Claim 5, as originally granted, read as follows: ...
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