Novo Industrial Corporation v. Standard Screw Company
| Decision Date | 11 April 1967 |
| Docket Number | No. 15827.,15827. |
| Citation | 374 F.2d 824 |
| Parties | NOVO INDUSTRIAL CORPORATION, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STANDARD SCREW COMPANY, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
James B. Kinzer, Jr., Thomas F. McWilliams, Chicago, Ill., Wallace, Kinzer & Dorn, Chicago, Ill., for appellant.
Thomas A. Reynolds, Jr., Chicago, Ill., Robert F. Davis, John H. Lewis, Jr., Washington, D. C., Winston, Strawn, Smith & Patterson, Chicago, Ill., Stevens, Davis, Miller & Mosher, Washington, D. C., for appellee.
Before KNOCH, CASTLE and SWYGERT, Circuit Judges.
Novo Industrial Corporation, plaintiff-appellant, the owner of Lowther U. S. Patent No. 3,105,477, issued October 1, 1963, and relating to a crankcase ventilating system for internal combustion engines, brought this suit in the District Court against Standard Screw Company, defendant-appellee, charging infringement of the patent. The defendant denied infringement and asserted that the patent was invalid.
The District Court, following trial of the issues of validity and infringement, entered findings of fact, conclusions of law, and a judgment order adjudicating the patent in suit to be invalid and dismissing plaintiff's action. The court also found, concluded, and adjudged that the patent, if valid, is not infringed by the devices shown to have been manufactured and sold by the defendant. On the issue of validity the court concluded that the subject matter of each of the claims of the patent fails to meet the condition of nonobviousness imposed by 35 U.S.C.A. § 103 as a prerequisite to the existence of patentable invention.
The patent in suit pertains to a valve structure adapted to be interposed in a conduit interconnecting the crankcase and the air intake manifold of an internal combustion engine, such as an automobile motor. The valve is employed for the purpose of providing a controlled flow of ventilating air from the crankcase back to the intake manifold. The type of ventilating system in which the valve is incorporated provides a means by which the blow-by gases from the cylinders which leak past the piston rings and into the crankcase are returned through the air intake to the combustion chamber for re-burning rather than exhausted from a conventional crankcase draft tube into the atmosphere. Such a ventilating system is designed to prevent the unburned hydrocarbons present in the blow-by from polluting the atmosphere and contributing to the "smog" problem which in recent years has been encountered in some areas.
When such a ventilating system is employed it is essential to the efficient and proper functioning of the engine that the flow of ventilating air from the crankcase to the intake manifold be controlled by metering in order to adjust for variations in the pressure differential between the crankcase and the intake manifold due to changes in intake manifold vacuum which occur according to the speed at which the engine is operated. The purpose of the valve of the patent is to so meter the flow and thereby regulate the amount of blow-by the intake vacuum is permitted to suck up from the crankcase.
The valve structure of the patent in suit comprises a housing provided with a metering orifice, and an elongated solid metering pin of a varying diameter which floats on a compression spring and cooperates with the metering orifice of the housing. The compression spring normally biases the pin away from the orifice. The diameter of the orifice is greater than any cross-section diameter of the pin. The pin retracts or advances in the orifice in response to changes in the pressure differential between the crankcase and the intake manifold and thereby alters the effective area or amount of clearance available between the pin and the wall of the orifice for the passage of blow-by to the intake manifold.
In normal operation, the pin is suspended or floats on the spring with no seating or closing contact with the orifice. In event of backfire, the head of the pin (the end of the pin facing away from the orifice) seats on a shoulder formed by a reduction of the inner diameter of the housing and thereby effects a closing or sealing-off of the inlet from the crankcase. The pin is solid. It therefore is without passages likely to clog. The coils of the compression spring engage the inner walls of the housing to effect a self-cleaning action.
Defendant's accused valve structure has but one feature which serves to distinguish it from the patented structure and from the plaintiff's commercial device. In defendant's valve one of the coils of the compression spring is laterally offset relative to the other coils so that under load conditions (high engine speeds) the cant imparted to the metering pin by the form of the spring causes the pin to come in rubbing contact with the wall of the orifice for the purpose of preventing or dampening longitudinal oscillation of the pin.
The record discloses that since 1960 there has been increasing interest in the use of blow-by control devices on automobiles. In 1963 the State of California made it mandatory that new motor vehicles be equipped with a blow-by control device meeting prescribed emission and operating standards. In 1964 a similar requirement was extended to used vehicles. The State of New York also requires crankcase control devices, and in 1965 New Jersey was considering similar legislation.
The application for the patent in suit was filed on January 8, 1962. Crankcase ventilating systems incorporating the valve structure described and claimed in the application (and in the patent which later issued) were approved by California on June 19, 1962, for use as blow-by devices when factory-installed by the autobile manufacturer on new cars, and on June 5, 1963, for use on used cars.
Plaintiff and defendant are competing manufacturers of crankcase ventilating system valves. But defendant sells its valves only to...
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