Long v. Dick
| Decision Date | 14 April 1941 |
| Docket Number | No. 1078.,1078. |
| Citation | 38 F. Supp. 214 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of California |
| Parties | LONG et al. v. DICK et al. |
Norbert Savay, of Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiffs.
Earle P. Thompson and Ben S. Beery, both of Los Angeles, Cal., for defendants.
This action involves the alleged infringement of a patent granted to the plaintiff, Ralph L. Long, on July 9th, 1940, No. 2,207,322. The plaintiff, A. J. Koll Planing Mill, Ltd., a California corporation, has been, since June 15th, 1939, manufacturing and selling said device by virtue of a license issued to him by the plaintiff, Long. The patent relates to a hanger for sliding doors to simplify and lower the cost of the hanger means for a sliding door by making a track element for the hanger a part of the header or lintel construction of the doorway, thus avoiding the extra expense and labor involved in constructing and installing a separate track element for the door hanger means; and to provide a more perfectly concealed track means for the door hanging means; to provide a door opening header construction that may readily have its side portions coated with plastering; to provide for building in not only the track for the door hanger but also a part of the hanger element that cooperates therewith, thus making the installing of the door proper a very quickly and easily performed operation and to in other respects simplify and lower the cost of structures of the kind to which the invention pertains. And further to provide a door hanger whereby broader and more satisfactory bearing surfaces are afforded the bearing means and to better keep the door in place upon the hanger member. And to provide a more compact hanger means for slidable doors so that a plurality of doors slidable into overlapping relation to each other may more conveniently be installed in a single door opening. The mechanical device is described in considerable detail in the specifications.
The header which forms the upper part of a regular door opening frame is utilized to form a track for the hanger means whereby the door closure member is slidingly supported. It is claimed that this feature lessens the cost of structure by avoiding the necessity of supplying any factory made track member by which to support the hanger means of the door. The patent claims are:
(1) "The combination with a wall structure of a building having a door opening therein, a wooden header overlying said opening and having an internal channel cut therethrough to form a trackway, a restricted opening leading from the channel to the lower face of the header, hanger members positioned within the header to ride in the trackway with the lower portion of said hanger members extending through the restricted opening and beyond the lower face of the header, a slidable door fitted within said door opening and provided with brackets on the upper portion thereof, said brackets provided with means whereby a lateral movement of the door within the door opening connects said door with the depending portions of said hanger members."
Claim No. 2 in the patent is identical with claim No. 1 except that at the end thereof is added the following words: "and spaced strips underlying said header on each side of said restricted opening to hold said door against lateral movement."
(3) "An overhead support for slidable doors comprising a pair of timbers positioned to form a header over a door opening, said timbers each having a cutaway face portion in an abutting relation to that of the other, thereby forming a trackway, a restricted opening leading from said trackway to the lower face of the header, hanger members positioned within the header to ride in the trackway with the lower portion of said hanger members extending through the restricted opening and beyond the lower face of the header, a slidable door fitted within said door opening and provided with brackets on the upper portion thereof, said brackets provided with means whereby a lateral movement of the door within the door opening connects said door with the depending portions of said hanger members."
The plaintiff and inventor, Ralph L. Long, had been engaged for a number of years in building work, and particularly in constructing houses. He conceived the idea of a practical, economical and safe door hanger described in the foregoing specifications, which would be a great improvement over the old door hangers, easily attached by practically anyone. Since the granting of the patent to the plaintiff, Long, he has issued 38 licenses in the United States to manufacture and sell the patented device, which has found wide distribution in 32 states of the union and in the Hawaiian Islands. Approximately 24,000 units of the patented device have been sold.
One of the licensees is the plaintiff, A. J. Koll Planing Mill, Ltd., a California corporation. The A. J. Koll Planing Mill Company has been located in Los Angeles County for more than fifty years and during this period has been engaged in the business of manufacturing mill work. The Koll Company, on or about the 15th of June, 1939, entered into an agreement with Ralph L. Long to manufacture and sell sliding door frames with hanger under the pending patent and the agreement provided for a license under the patent, when granted, to manufacture, sell and use the same on a royalty basis. Upon signing said agreement, Long delivered all of the specifications, drawings and directions for making said frames and hangers as described in his application for patent, and said Long explained all of the details as to design, style and method of operation of said device. The agreement provided for the immediate manufacture of said sliding door frames with hangers, and sale thereof. The Koll Company immediately proceeded to manufacture said patented article and sold the same to its regular and other customers and developed a substantial business.
Plaintiffs' Exhibit 19 shows the progressive increase in sales of the patented device by the licensee, A. J. Koll Planing Mill, Ltd., as follows:
1939 June 3 1940 Jan. 117
" July 10 " Feb. 289
" Aug. 21 " Mar. 236
" Sept. 34 " Apr. 459
" Oct. 97 " May 514
" Nov. 113 " June 482
" Dec. 228 " July 441
___ " Aug. 650
Total 506 " Sept. 995
" Oct. 777
" Nov. 640
" Dec. 516
___
Total 6116
1941
Jan. 486
Feb. 433 Total 919
This one licensee sold over 6,000 of these patented articles. Long testified that approximately 24,000 units of his invention were sold and there were no complaints. The device worked satisfactorily.
The plaintiff, Koll Company, had in its employ, prior to April, 1940, for a period of approximately eleven years, the defendant, David H. Isaac, in the capacity of bookkeeper, and as such bookkeeper he had access to all the lists of customers, price lists, costs of making the patented device referred to, and as such bookkeeper was familiar with the cost, the gross and net profits, the method of manufacture, blue prints and specifications, and he signed his name as a witness to the agreement between Long, the owner of the patent, and the plaintiff, A. J. Koll Planing Mill, Ltd., dated June 15, 1939, which agreement provided for the manufacture and sale of the patented device.
While defendant, Isaac, was still in the employ of plaintiff company, he formed a partnership, on January 9th, 1940, with his brother-in-law, Otto D. Dick, but continued in the employ of the plaintiff company until April 11, 1940. On this point paragraph 3 of the answer is as follows: "Deny all of paragraph XIII, except that defendants admit that on or about the 9th day of January, 1940 defendant, David H. Isaac, who was at that time thoroughly informed of the details pertaining to the manufacture of the said sliding door frames manufactured by Koll Planing Mill Ltd., did join a company known as Quality Frame & Materials Co. taking Otto D. Dick as his partner, and did leave the employment of said plaintiff Koll Planing Mill, Ltd., and, that, thereafter, said Quality Frame & Materials Co. did begin manufacturing and selling door frame devices."
And in paragraph 4 of defendants' answer: "defendants admit that defendant David H. Isaac was a trusted employee of plaintiff, Koll Planing Mill Ltd. and as such was entrusted with the names of said plaintiffs' customers and also with the profits, manufacture and sale of said sliding door frames."
The Quality Frame & Materials Co. commenced the manufacture of sliding door frames on April 20, 1940, and secured the services of Harold S. Graham, an experienced salesman who, for a year prior thereto, had been employed by the A. J. Koll Planing Mill, Ltd. Graham testified that he was familiar with the frame and device patented by Long and had sold a number of said devices, and testified that he realized he might compete with the Koll Company and he conferred with one of the attorneys for the defendants for advice. The evidence shows that customers of the plaintiff, Koll Company, have been solicited by the defendants. The defendants admit notice of the pending of the application for the Long patent and also admit notice of the granting of the letters patent to Long in July, 1940.
The defendants deny that they have, in any way, infringed or violated any rights of the plaintiffs or threatened to commit any acts of infringement in violation of plaintiffs' rights in said patent and deny that the Long patent has any utility and allege that the purported letters patent are ambiguous and not distinct and do not particularly point out the part, improvement or combination...
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