Lovell-McConnell Mfg. Co. v. Automobile Supply Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 08 June 1914
• Docket Number: 292.
• Citation: 216 F. 146
• Parties: LOVELL-McCONNELL MFG. CO. v. AUTOMOBILE SUPPLY MFG. CO. et al. [1]
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

216 F. 146

LOVELL-McCONNELL MFG. CO. v. AUTOMOBILE SUPPLY MFG. CO. et al. ^[1]

No. 292.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

June 8, 1914

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of New York.

On appeal from an interlocutory decree entered by the District Court for the Eastern District of New York holding valid and infringed certain claims of three patents granted to Miller Reese Hutchinson for improvements in signal or alarm horns such as are used on automobiles, launches, steamboats, etc. These patents, all issued on the same day, May 25, 1909 aggregate about 29,000 words; they contain 125 claims and 27 illustrative figures. The claims involved, 48 in all, are Nos. 16, 17, 19, 24, 27, 29, 36 and 37 of No. 923,048; Nos 1, 2, 8, 12, 13, 22 and 30 of No. 923,049; and Nos. 1, 2, 3 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27 28, 29, 30, 31, 35, 36, 37, 38, 45, 47, 48, 52 and 53 of No. 923,122. There are three volumes of testimony, containing 2,770 pages. This cumbersome record, imposing, as it does, an immense burden upon counsel and upon the court, has for its object the elucidation of an alarm horn of comparatively simple construction. It is said that this expanding of the record is largely due to the fact that the major part of the testimony was taken under the old equity rules. It is hardly probable that under the new system such a record could be produced. After endeavoring to follow experts and counsel through the infinite mazes of the record, the predominant thought left upon the mind of the court is the difficulty of discovering the exact nature of the controversy in this wilderness of words.

The opinion of the Circuit Court on the motion for a preliminary injunction is reported in 193 F. 658. The opinion at final hearing is reported in 212 F. 192.

Frederick P. Fish, C. A. L. Massie, J. L. Stackpole, and Ralph L. Scott, all of New York City, for appellants.

George C. Dean and Drury W. Cooper, both of New York City, for appellee.

Before COXE and ROGERS, Circuit Judges, and MAYER, District Judge.

COXE Circuit Judge.

The peculiar merit of the Klaxon horn seems to be that it is capable of making a more strident, insistent and insolent noise than any which has preceded it. The sound has been described in this, and previous litigation, as 'harsh,' 'raucous,' 'horrible,' 'diabolical- ' and 'villainous.' There can be no doubt that these adjectives are more or less applicable. Why it was thought necessary, with the musical and merry notes of the coach horn and the hunter's horn as guides, to mar the pleasure of automobiling and shiver the air with such discordant sounds, the court has been unable to understand. However, as both parties are almost equal offenders in this regard, it is unnecessary to dwell upon this phase of the case, further than to say that the ideal auto-horn has yet to be invented.

The first patent in suit, No. 923,048, has for its object the production of a signaling or alarm horn capable of using as much power and of producing as loud a sound as may be desired by means of simple, strong and reliable combinations. This is accomplished by the mechanical vibration of an elastic diaphragm which, when divorced from technicalities and terms of art, does not seem to be a particularly difficult object to accomplish. A ratchet wheel revolving on the upturned bottom of a tin pan would probably produce a somewhat similar result. We entirely agree with the statement in the brief of the appellee that:

'The 'horn or resonator' of the patent has been the subject of discussion out of all proportion to the simplicity of the subject.'

And this is true whether the diaphragm is agitated by a cam or by a crank and link arrangement. The gist of the invention, from the appellee's point of view, is stated in its brief as follows:

'It is with the bodily diaphragm-movements that this case has to do; and the issues are further limited to the 'part-positively-forced and part wholly-free' movement of an elastic diaphragm.'

In other words, the diaphragm must be elastic, it must be held in place at its periphery by clamps, and, when struck at or near its center, it must vibrate; the movement in each vibration being initiated by great force and completed under the natural conditions of the diaphragm.

The construction shown in Fig. 9 of the drawings illustrates the Hutchinson improvement in its simplest form. The diaphragm is here shown as agitated by the disk having cam projections arranged to engage suitable surfaces on the diaphragm which displace it in one direction without the necessity of a separate reciprocating member. The abrupt faces on the back side of the cam allow the free elastic return of the diaphragm at its own natural rate, thus permitting a lost motion engagement. The drawing shows a disk having two cams, but the description says that:

'The periphery of the disk 15 may be greatly increased and the number of cams greatly multiplied.'

The patent to A. N. Pierman for an alarm is, we think, the best reference produced by the defendants. It was applied for August 18, 1898 and was granted March 14, 1899, ten years prior to the Hutchinson patents in suit. Pierman had in view the same object as Hutchinson, namely: 'To provide a simple, inexpensive, easily attached and loud-sounding alarm adapted for general use, but more especially for vehicles, as bicycles; and my invention consists, essentially, in the combination, with a point or button carried by a resonant diaphragm, of a transversely corrugated wheel whose periphery engages the point or button.'

This patent is criticised because the description occupies 'less than a single page in...