Hughes Aircraft Co. v. General Instrument Corp., Civ. A. No. 3095.
| Decision Date | 19 July 1967 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 3095. |
| Citation | 275 F. Supp. 961 |
| Parties | HUGHES AIRCRAFT COMPANY v. GENERAL INSTRUMENT CORPORATION. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island |
Dugald S. McDougall, Chicago, Ill., Benjamin A. Smith, Providence, R. I., for plaintiff.
Harold James, New York City, Herman J. Aisenberg, Providence, R. I., for defendant.
This is an action for patent infringement and the court has jurisdiction over the parties and the subject matter. Two patents are involved, to wit:
a) U.S. Patent No. 2,694,168 entitled, "Glass-Sealed Semiconductor Crystal Device," issued November 9, 1954 to the plaintiff as assignee of Harper Q. North and Justice N. Carman, Jr. (hereinafter referred to as "the North patent") and
b) U.S. Patent No. 2,742,383 entitled, "Germanium Junction-Type Semiconductor Devices," issued April 17, 1956 to the plaintiff as assignee of Sanford H. Barnes and Justice N. Carman, Jr. (hereinafter called "the Barnes patent").
Both patents have been the sole property of the plaintiff, Hughes Aircraft Company, at all times since their respective dates of grant.
The plaintiff, Hughes Aircraft Company, is a Delaware corporation, its principal place of business being at Culver City, California. The defendant is a New Jersey corporation having an office and factory at Woonsocket in the District of Rhode Island whereat it is alleged the acts of infringement were committed and the venue is hence properly laid in this District.
The plaintiff charges defendant with having infringed both the North patent and the Barnes patent by manufacturing and selling, without license from plaintiff, semiconductor devices embodying the respective inventions of those patents. Specifically, the plaintiff charges infringement of claims 60 and 61 of the North patent and of claims 2, 4, 10 and 11 of the Barnes patent. Defendant admits that it has infringed claims of the North patent, if they are valid; defendant denies infringement of any of the claims of the Barnes patent.
In addition to denying infringement of the Barnes patent, defendant has pleaded, with respect to both patents in suit the affirmative defenses of patent invalidity and laches and estoppel.
This court feels some general statements as to the basic principles relating to these patents is necessary in order to better understand the inventions in question.
The two types of semiconductor devices involved in this case are "diodes" and "transistors."
There is no controversy concerning the testimony of the plaintiff's witness, Dr. Dietrich A. Jenny, who described these as being semiconductor devices which make use of certain special electrical properties possessed by a class of chemical elements and compounds which are called "semiconductors." A semiconductor has electrical conductivity intermediate between that of metals such as silver and copper on the one hand and that of insulating materials on the other.
The most commonly used semiconductors are the elements germanium and silicon and generally speaking the case at bar involves a small crystal, pure germanium or silicon, into which there has been intentionally introduced impurities. If the impurity so introduced is of a class of elements known as "donor impurities" (antimony and arsenic being examples) it will result in an N-type semiconductor; if it is of the elements called "acceptor impurities" (aluminum and indium being examples) it will result in a P-type semiconductor. Each of these types conduct electricity in different ways and are much better than the pure semiconductor crystals.
N-type and P-type semiconductors can be made to conduct current readily in one direction while strongly resisting current flow in the opposite direction and this is known as "rectification" which is a useful property, having wide application in electrical circuits. Rectification action may be obtained by bringing the sharp point of a metal (sometimes called a "catwhisker") into contact with the crystal surface. In simplest terms, those of us who have passed the half century mark may well remember doing this in the crystal sets we made as children. Today, it is called "point-contact diode."
Another way of fashioning a rectifier from N-type or P-type semiconductor crystal is to convert a portion of the crystal over to the opposite conductivity type—that is, to form a region of P-type material in a crystal which is otherwise N-type, or vice-versa. When this is done, the boundary between the P-type and the N-type region acts as a rectifier. This is known in the art as a "P-N junction."
The diode is a simple semiconductor rectifier having two terminals to permit their being connected into an electrical circuit. In the case of a point contact diode, one of the terminal leads is connected to the catwhisker and the other to the body of the crystal; in the case of a P-N junction diode, one of the terminal leads is connected to the P-type region of the crystal and the other to the N-type region of the crystal.
The transistor is a more complicated type of semiconductor device, in which two or more rectifying regions are provided within a single semiconductor crystal. This may be done by providing more than one P-N junction. Transistors formed from an N-type crystal having two different P-type regions therein are known as P-N-P transistors; alternatively, transistors fashioned from a P-type crystal having two separate N-type regions are known as N-P-N transistors. Both of these types have important applications and are widely used.
In viewing some of the exhibits, it can readily be seen that generally a transistor has three external terminals; one terminal being connected to the base crystal and the other two being respectively connected to the two regions of conductivity type opposite to that of the base crystal.
There is no question that early in the history of the art, successful P-N-P transistors of the alloy-junction type were developed and marketed. However, this controversy arises as to the N-P-N transistors which the plaintiff contends did not come into practical commercial being until some several years after the P-N-P type.
With this background, the court will now focus its attention to the North patent No. 2,694,168.
The North patent discloses and claims glass-sealed semiconductor devices and methods for making such devices. It contains 61 claims and of these, the defendant is charged with infringement of claims 60 and 61. The defendant has manufactured in commercial quantities glass-sealed semiconductor diodes that respond to the description in claims 60 and 61 and admits that those claims, if valid, have been infringed. Claims 60 and 61 of the North patent here in suit are alike save for minor differences in language.
Claim 60 of the North patent reads as follows:
The merits of hermetically sealing a semiconductor diode in a glass housing are not in dispute.
There was a need for hermetically sealing a semiconductor diode in a glass housing because of the intrinsically delicate nature of semiconductor devices. They are subject to deterioration due to moisture in even minute amounts and effective gas tight sealing is therefore essential for stable operation and long life.
There is no need to point out specifically the testimony describing the difficulty in designing an effective glass-sealed housing because of complications introduced by expansion and contraction under temperature changes of the glass housing and the metal parts of the device. This court finds it uncontradicted; it also finds uncontradicted the testimony showing how semiconductor crystals may be damaged and ruined by the temperatures required for sealing glass to metal, for a successful glass-housed, hermetically sealed diode must be capable of final sealing without subjection of the semiconductor crystal to excessive temperature.
The North patent is a diode or rectifier. The electrically active elements are a germanium crystal to one surface of which a lead is ohmically connected, a pointed lead being resiliently pressed against the opposite surface of the crystal. These active elements are completely surrounded by a glass envelope, the leads extending out through and being hermetically sealed to the glass envelope.
In the North patent, figure 14 (Exhibit 20-F), it can be seen that all surfaces...
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