Hydraulic Press Mfg. Co. v. Ralph N. Brodie Co.
| Decision Date | 27 July 1943 |
| Docket Number | No. 22086-G.,22086-G. |
| Citation | 51 F. Supp. 202 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of California |
| Parties | HYDRAULIC PRESS MFG. CO. v. RALPH N. BRODIE CO. et al. |
Toulmin & Toulmin, Rowan A. Greer, and D. C. Staley, all of Dayton, Ohio, and Hackley & Hursh, of San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiff.
Clifton V. Edwards, of New York City, Edward A. Hathaway, of Philadelphia, Pa., and Oscar Mellin, of Oakland, Cal., for defendants.
This is a suit wherein The Hydraulic Press Manufacturing Company, an Ohio corporation, charges the infringement of certain United States Letters Patents relating to an hydraulic metal drawing press.
The complaint named The Ralph N. Brodie Company, a California corporation, and Baldwin-Southwark Division of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, a Pennsylvania corporation, along with fictitious parties, as defendants. Service of process upon the defendant Baldwin-Southwark Division of the Baldwin Locomotive Works was quashed for lack of venue and the action dismissed as to it. Defendant The Ralph N. Brodie Company, a California corporation, and The Pelton Water Wheel Company, a California corporation, wholly-owned subsidiary of Baldwin Locomotive Works, by separate answers, denied infringement and alleged the invalidity of plaintiff's patents.
The complaint set forth that plaintiff was the owner of the following numbered patents, assigned to it by Walter Ernst, alleged inventor, and Director of Engineering of plaintiff corporation: No. 2,067,265, No. 2,136,240 and No. 2,167,941.
At the trial all claims against defendants arising under patent No. 2,167,941, no evidence having been introduced relating thereto, were abandoned, and therefore plaintiff is entitled to and may have no relief against defendants for any claim or claims arising under said numbered patent.
Defendant The Ralph N. Brodie Company manufactures and sells fluid meters and purchased the accused device or press within six years prior to the commencement of the action from The Pelton Water Wheel Company, which, in turn, purchased the same from the Baldwin-Southwark Division of the Baldwin Locomotive Works; thereafter it (Brodie Company) used the device in stamping out the products which it sold in the course of its business. Plaintiff is a large manufacturer of hydraulic blank-holding or hold-down presses. The evidence showed that during the last five years, plaintiff sold presses embodying the claims of the two patents in suit, of a sales value of approximately $1,200,000, among them being presses especially manufactured for and sold to large airplane manufacturing and automobile manufacturing plants.
Plaintiff contends that machines embodying the claims of the patents produce or draw forms of varying designs suitable for many diversified needs of manufacturers with an efficiency, smoothness and rapidity unknown to the presses preceding them.
In patent No. 2,067,265, the inventor states the objects of his invention as follows:
"One object of my invention is to provide a hydraulic double-acting press having a drawing piston and a clamping piston arranged to move substantially simultaneously into position during the working stroke, until the blank is clamped whereupon the drawing piston continues the work of forming the article." (Pltf. Ex. 4, p. 1, 11.6-12, left hand column.)
"Another object is to provide hydraulic double-acting metal-drawing press of the above described type, wherein the clamping devices are provided with means for adjusting the clamping pressure so as to exert a predetermined force upon the blank during the drawing operation." (Pltf. Ex. 4, p. 1, 11.7-12, right hand column.)
"Another object is to provide a hydraulic acting metal-drawing press having a main drawing piston and platen arranged to engage a clamping piston in such a manner that the clamping piston tends to push against the platen during the working stroke and be pulled away from the work piece by the platen during the return stroke." (Pltf. Ex. 4, p. 1, 11.22-29, right hand column.)
Of the fifteen claims set forth in this patent, claims 7, 9, 10, 11, 14 and 15 only were relied upon. It is claimed that this patent is a combination patent, i. e. a. combination of different elements to accomplish the desired result by co-operation of such elements.
From Claim No. 7, this combination in a hydraulic press may be briefly described as —
1 a double acting pressing plunger
2 a platen connected thereto
3 a clamping plunger
4 a clamping member operated thereby
5 the platen and member operated thereby being adapted to engage one another
6 means for restricting the discharge of pressure fluid from around one of said plungers
7 the purpose of the foregoing combination of elements being to maintain the platen and clamping member in engagement with one another during the motion thereof.
It would unduly prolong this opinion to set forth, even in brief break-down, claims 9, 10, 11, 14 and 15. Suffice it to say that additional elements in combination are set forth, alleged to provide the means for the effectuation of the objects of the invention.
In patent No. 2,136,240, the inventor states the following to be the objects thereof:
Claims 7, 8, 9 and 10 only are here asserted.
The break-down of claim 8 shows the following elements in combination:
(6) means responsive to the pressure built up in the clamping cylinder by the motion of said clamping cylinder relatively to said clamping plunger for cutting off said fluid-supplying means from said clamping cylinder whereby the fluid is entrapped and pressure developed by the motion of said platen relatively to said clamping plunger and caused to operate said clamping plunger to clamp the work-piece.
(7) and a pressure release device for releasing fluid from said clamping cylinder in response to the attainment of a predetermined pressure.
A like comment may be made as to the other claims of this patent, to that made with respect to the claims of patent No. 2,067,265. Applications for both patents were co-pending in the patent office, and defendants have not pleaded the first patent as an anticipation or disclosure of the second.
In the seventeenth century, Blaise Pascal discovered the principle, now known as Pascal's law, that fluids transmit pressure equally in all directions. It is not here contended that Ernst was the discoverer of the hydraulic press; for it was the Englishman Joseph Bramah who, during the last of the eighteenth century, made the first practical application of Pascal's law in his invention of the hydraulic press.
In this case, the evidence showed that prior to the alleged invention of Ernst, there was no commercially successful press on the market, combining the feature of hydraulic clamping means for holding the work piece while the drawing operation proceeded by means of hydraulic action of the main forming plunger of the press.
Defendants vigorously contend that the patents in suit, while constituting a combination of elements, are nothing more than the skilled artisan's labor of combining elements well known in the art to effect the combination projected in plaintiff's patents. In support of this contention, eight prior art patents were presented and expert testimony adduced thereon. Able counsel on both sides (Captain Greer and Mr. Edwards respectively), by charts, diagrams, and carefully constructed models, have greatly lightened the labor of the Court in both understanding and deciding the problem involved. To go into intricate detail as to each part or element involved in plaintiff's patents, in the prior art patents, and in the accused's device, would not only transform this opinion into a treatise, but would also give indication of a vast technical knowledge which this Court does not possess.
I can only "divine" the best I can from the history of the art as presented objectively, whether plaintiff's combination is a new contribution, or results from what has been called "the day to day capacity of the ordinary artisan." Such judgment as I exercise in this matter is wholly personal, guided of course by the able contributions of the parties and counsel, and must, as has been said, be "in that sense arbitrary." Kirsch Mfg. Co. v. Gould Mercereau Co., 2 Cir., 6 F.2d 793, 794.
The combination described in plaintiff's patents, scrutinized in the floodlight of present-day facts, according to defendants' arguments, would appear to have been an easy problem, and according to defendants' experts, one that any reasonably skilled workman could have put together at any time in the past. That, however, by well stated judicial pronouncements, is not the real test. Great changes very often appear to be very simple when viewed ex post...
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Ralph N. Brodie Co. v. Hydraulic Press Mfg. Co.
...of patent No. 2,067,265 and claims 7, 8, 9 and 10 of patent No. 2,136,240 were valid and infringed by appellants and entered a judgment (51 F.Supp. 202) which enjoined such infringement, ordered an accounting of profits and damages and dismissed the suit as to patent No. 2,167,941. From tha......
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