James L. Taylor Mfg. Co. v. Steuernagel

• Citation: 294 F. 362
• Decision Date: 01 December 1923
• Docket Number: 1627.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut
• Parties: JAMES L. TAYLOR MFG. CO. v. STEUERNAGEL.

294 F. 362

JAMES L. TAYLOR MFG. CO. v. STEUERNAGEL.

No. 1627.

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

December, 1923

Russell M. Everett, of Newark, N.J., and Henry E. Rockwell, of New Haven, Conn., for plaintiff.

Heath Sutherland, of Hartford, Conn., for defendant.

THOMAS District Judge.

Letters patent No. 867,622 were issued to James Taylor on October 8 1907, and by him assigned to the plaintiff on July 6, 1918 and recorded July 20, 1918. The patent is for alleged improvements in 'screw clamps' used mostly by carpenters, cabinet makers, and woodworkers for clamping glued work; the invention being useful to that branch of the woodworking industry in which strips of wood are glued and held together while setting by the clamp process, for the purpose of forming larger pieces.

The clamp in question comprises a bar having a fixed end through which a screw works to move a head toward and away from the work; the work lying on the bar and engaged at the opposite end by an adjustable stop. In this stop or head is a recess which opens through the rear of the head, and is closed against the bar at the front of the head or clamping place. Within the recess is a wedge having a large end rearward and extending out from the recess, and to which is attached a gripping block, which engages the bar to prevent the adjustable head from sliding. A portion of the wedge is upturned to carry a projecting pin, upon which is a spring which bears against the rear wall of the recess. The spring and wedge are concealed in the adjustable head, but have extending outward therefrom a projecting end, which is provided with a finger grip, and this in turn enables the workmen to grip the wedge and adjust the head to any desired position up or down the bar. The spring acts to instantly grip the bar when pressure is applied. The clamp, so constituted, sustains the pressure of great weight, and in actual operation may, and does, receive the whole pressure of the screw and leverage. The clamp is made in many sizes depending upon the length and width of the bar.

Claims 3, 4, and 5 are in suit and are as follows:

3. 'In a clamp, the combination, with a bar, of a head slidably mounted on said bar and having on the side of the bar where the work lies a recess at its rear and being closed at its front against said bar, a wedge in said recess with its large end rearward and adapted to engage the bar, and a spring inclosed and concealed by said recess and acting longitudinally of the bar and the wedge to force said wedge forward.'

4. 'In a clamp, the combination with a bar, of a head slidably mounted on said bar and having on the side of the bar where the work lies a recess at its rear and being closed at its front against said bar, a wedge in said recess adapted to engage the bar and having its large end projecting rearward from said recess and provided with a finger grasp, and a spring inclosed and concealed by said recess and acting longitudinally of the bar and the wedge to force said wedge forward.'

5. 'In a clamp, the combination with a bar, of a head slidably mounted on said bar and having on the side of the bar where the work lies a recess at its rear and being closed at its front against said bar and having an interior enlargement or extension of the inner end of said recess in a direction away from the bar, a wedge of said recess adapted to engage the bar and having its large end rearward, and a spring inclosed in said extension of the recess and adapted to act longitudinally of the bar and wedge upon the inner end of said wedge to force said wedge forward.'

The essential element of the invention, broadly stated, is the adjustable head indicated in the drawing as Fig. 3, and it is in this head that the recess, wedge, and spring, as above described, are contained. These matters relate principally to claim 3. Claims 4 and 5 are additional features in construction, such as a finger grip at the rear end.

Both validity and invention are denied. In patent cases, the issuance of the patent is a presumption of validity and presents a prima facie case. While many claims are set up in the defendant's answer, with reference to the prior art as relating to the invention of the patent in suit, but three are pressed at trial. Only these three will be considered, as the others are apparently too remote to affect the status of the patent under consideration. The three in question, close enough to be entitled to consideration, are (1) the patent to Houghton, No. 567,715, issued September 15, 1896; (2) the patent to Pinder, No. 17,229, issued May 5, 1857; and (3) the patent to Lee, Sr., No. 663,283, issued December 4, 1900.

The Houghton Patent, No. 567,715.

This relates to a pipe wrench, a model of which was made and introduced in evidence. Its object is to grip instantly, without flattening the pipe to which the wrench is applied. The set lock or recess does not co-operate to resist relative longitudinal movement of the clip and stem. The purpose, object, and operation of the wrench were obviously, from an examination of the patent and model, entirely distinct and apart from the operation of the clamp in suit. Some of the elements of Houghton are contained in Taylor, in so far as it has a wedge and spring; but the essential operation of the wrench is to form a spacer, and in this space is inserted the pipe, which is gripped by the teeth of the two jaws of the wrench. The longitudinal movement in the Houghton patent is prevented by the gripping of these teeth on the pipe, which is unnecessary in the Taylor patent; nothing being required to hold the work in shape after the adjustable head is moved to the desired length, the gripping process being applied by the operation of the screw. In Specialty Manufacturing Co. v. Fenton Metallic Mfg. Co., 174 U.S. 494, 498, 19 Sup.Ct. 641, 643 (43 L.Ed. 1058), the Supreme Court said:

'Where a combination of old devices produces a new result, such combination is doubtless patentable; but where the combination is not only of old elements, but of old results, and no new function is evolved from such combination, it falls within the rulings of this court in Hailes v. Van Wormer, 20 Wall. 353, 368,' -- which case was cited by this Court in Tucker v. Universal Auto Co., 277 F. 469, 472.

Then, too, the testimony of the witness Raymond W. Burns clearly shows the distinction in the operation between the Houghton patent and the Taylor patent, and an examination of these patents clearly shows that there is little or nothing in common. The Houghton patent was not cited by the Examiner upon the application for the Taylor patent, and it fails to show the combination having an adjustable head with a recess containing a wedge or a gripping block.

The Pinder Patent, No. 17,229.

This patent is nearly 70 years old, and is also an entirely different process, and was not considered or cited by the Examiner as part of the prior art. It lacks the gripping wedge and spring, as well as the bar clamp with the adjustable head, and is the ordinary hand adjustable wrench, and is not a product that is being marketed at this time to any great extent, if at all. In no substantial way does it perform the function of the patent in question.

Lee, Sr., Patent, No. 663,283.

This patent also lacks the gripping wedge action, and lacks the wedge feature entirely. There are merely two flat surfaces, which form a space in which the desired object is inserted and held in place by the meshing teeth or serrations on the bars of the jaw. This is also, in form, the usual or hand monkey wrench, and does not anticipate the patent in suit, and is also a product in little use. This disposes of the three patents cited by the defendant, and what this court said in Carnes Artificial Limb Co. v. Dilworth Arm Co., 273 F. 838, at page 842, applies to the case at bar with equal force:

'In view of the facts here disclosed, a general resume of the cases applicable to this discussion sustains the doctrine that, in order to establish anticipation, it is not sufficient to pick out one part of a patented device from one prior patent, another part from some other, and still a third from a third prior patent, and then say that it is not invention to bring those several parts together, especially when the patentee is the first to conceive of so doing, and by so doing has produced a practical, operative device and has discovered 'what is the difficulty with an existing structure, and what change in its elements will correct the

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