JR Clark Company v. Geuder, Paeschke & Frey Co.

• Decision Date: 16 October 1958
• Docket Number: No. 12301.,12301.
• Citation: 259 F.2d 737
• Parties: The J. R. CLARK COMPANY and John R. Clark, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. GEUDER, PAESCHKE & FREY CO., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

259 F.2d 737 (1958)

The J. R. CLARK COMPANY and John R. Clark, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. GEUDER, PAESCHKE & FREY CO., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 12301.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

October 10, 1958.

As Corrected October 16, 1958.

Maxwell H. Herriott, Gerrit D. Foster, Milwaukee, Wis., Paul R. Puerner, Milwaukee, Wis., Arthur H. Seidel, Milwaukee, Wis., of counsel, for appellant.

Andrew E. Carlsen, Minneapolis, Minn., Curtis B. Morsell, Milwaukee, Wis., Douglas L. Carlsen, Minneapolis, Minn., for appellees.

Before DUFFY, Chief Judge, and FINNEGAN and KNOCH, Circuit Judges.

DUFFY, Chief Judge.

This is a patent infringement suit. Claim I of Olander patent No. 2,663,102 is the only claim in issue.¹ This patent was granted December 22, 1953 on an application filed June 9, 1950. The District Court held that Claim I was valid and infringed.

The patent in suit relates to ironing tables and is particularly directed to the supporting structure for the table top. The evidence disclosed the well-known fact that hand-ironing is a very tiring and disagreeable task for the housewife. The fatigue factor which results from hand-ironing has been the subject of scientific studies, and the industry was greatly interested in any device that would make hand-ironing less arduous.

The principal reason why hand-ironing was so tiring was that the housewife had to stand while ironing, or sit on a high stool with her knees either spread apart or twisted to one side because of the interfering leg structure of the ironing table. There are some types of ironing where the housewife prefers to stand, but usually ironing can be more comfortably accomplished while sitting, provided the table can easily be lowered to a level where the housewife can work from an ordinary chair, and provided the supporting structure is so designed that she can sit with her knees in a normal forward position and with the surface of the table brought completely over her lap so she need not bend forward while working.

Attempts were made before Olander to design ironing tables for ironing in a sitting position as is shown in patents issued to Clark, No. 2,494,506; Krueger, No. 2,566,668 and Michelson, No. 2,011,251. However, these patents did not solve the problem and there is no evidence that any tables or boards were constructed or sold which utilized the teachings of those patents.

The ironing table shown and described in the Olander patent in suit is known as Clark's Table No. 10, and is so constructed that it readily can be adjusted to various sit-down and stand-up positions to accommodate tall or short operators. The supporting structure includes pivotally connected single bar legs, the upper portions of which are disposed adjacent to the vertical plane of one lateral edge of the top. This provides knee and leg space and the top member can be positioned directly over the operator's lap. As the leg members are pivoted above their longitudinal centers, they span a wide floor area, and this forms a rigid supporting structure regardless of the elevation to which the table is adjusted. Another feature of the Clark Table No. 10 is that the entire supporting structure is collapsible flatly against the underside of the ironing table for shipment or storage.

Olander filed his application in June, 1950, and the corporate plaintiff² made immediate plans to go into production and build up an inventory. The ironing table was first displayed to the public at the National Housewares Exhibit held in Chicago in January, 1953. The President and the Sales Manager of defendant each saw and examined plaintiffs' table and caused one to be purchased by defendant.

The design engineer of defendant was instructed to build an ironing table in competition with Clark's Table No. 10. The ironing table which was thereafter developed by defendant was known as Model C-690. Starting in June, 1953, this table was widely advertised, and was first sold by defendant in October, 1953. In its advertisements appearing in nationally distributed publications, defendant's Model C-690 was described as "sensational" and as a "radically new design." Model C-690 became defendant's most popular table in its high-priced line and completely displaced defendant's previous deluxe ironing table Model C-680. The accused structure is defendant's Model C-690.

Clark's Model No. 10 embodied the structure defined by Claim I. It also incorporated a diagonally crosswise leg structure contained in plaintiffs' companion patent, Olander No. 2,663,101 which was issued the same day as the patent in suit. This new model met with great commercial success. By September 30, 1956, more than a million of such ironing tables had been sold. For the first fiscal year after Model 10 was placed on the market, the sales were four times as great as the number of plaintiff's sales of its previous deluxe ironing table for a like period. Furthermore, Model 10 sold at a considerably higher price than any previous model of ironing table sold by plaintiffs.

Defendant argues that Claim I is invalid in that it reads upon the prior art and the Mary Proctor ironing table. The Mary Proctor Hi-Lo sit-down or stand-up ironing table was made by Proctor Electric Company and was offered for sale August 25, 1949. The principal prior art relied upon by defendant is Lowenberg Patent No. 1,976,031.

Lowenberg is a file wrapper reference and was considered by the patent office examiner. Lowenberg was a combination card table and bedside table. This structure was not intended as a solution of the problems involved in ironing clothes. The legs of the Lowenberg table are not pivotally connected at points above their longitudinal centers. These legs are not collapsibly arranged to perform the functions required in an ironing table. We agree with the District Court that the examiner who allowed the claim in suit was correct in rejecting Lowenberg as not being a pertinent reference.

We likewise agree with the statement of the District Judge that the Mary Proctor ironing table "not only does not suggest the invention of the patent in suit, but that as far as the structure defined by the Olander claim is concerned, the Mary Proctor ironing table is substantially identical with the Hild patent, No. 2,546,097, which the examiner considered and rejected, and is substantially identical with the Model C-680 ironing table which defendant previously sold and which was displaced by the infringing Model C-690 ironing table." This statement is substantially correct in spite of the fact that the legs of the C-680 table are located on center and the legs of the Mary Proctor table are located off center.

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