Philip v. WILDMAN JACQUARD COMPANY

• Decision Date: 09 December 1963
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 22518.
• Citation: 225 F. Supp. 955
• Parties: Morris PHILIP and K & J Trading Corporation v. WILDMAN JACQUARD COMPANY.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

225 F. Supp. 955

Morris PHILIP and K & J Trading Corporation v. WILDMAN JACQUARD COMPANY.

Civ. A. No. 22518.

United States District Court E. D. Pennsylvania.

December 9, 1963.

Sigmund H. Steinberg, Steinberg, Richman, Price & Steinbrook, Philadelphia, Pa., W. Brown Morton, Jr., Pennie, Edmonds, Morton, Barrows & Taylor, Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.

Henry N. Paul, Jr., Robert B. Frailey, John H. Austin, Paul & Paul, Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant.

KIRKPATRICK, District Judge.

This is an action for infringement of United States Reissue Patent No. 25,101 to Philip for a knitting machine comprising mechanism the purpose of which is to change the knitting pattern, as for example, from plain knitting to rib knitting or the reverse, without changing the operating speed of the machine.

The patent has 28 claims of which claims 20 and 21 — both of which are method claims — are the only ones in suit, it being conceded that the defendant's "AI" machine, the operation of which is charged to be an infringement of the method claims, does not infringe any of the apparatus claims. The validity of the method claims and the propriety of the reissue are challenged. The defense of noninfringement is especially stressed.

Claim 20 is as follows:

"In the operation of a knitting machine comprising at least one needle bank and a plurality of yarn feeds, said yarn feeds being aligned in a path parallel to said needle bank, said needle bank and said plurality of yarn feeds being moved relatively past one another with said yarn feeds being juxtaposed with respect to said needle bank so that the yarn supplied by each feed is normally engaged by the needles of the needle bank which are nearest thereto, the method of cyclically changing the pattern of knitting which comprises displacing some of said yarn feeds so that the yarn supplied thereby is shifted to a position in which the needle nearest the yarn feeds which have been displaced cannot engage the yarn supplied thereby and transferring the so shifted yarn to a next trailing yarn feed for delivery thereby to the needles of said needle bank which are nearest to the same, and then returning said displaced yarn feeds to their original position in which the yarn supplied thereby is once again engaged by the needles nearest thereto."

Claim 21 is substantially the same except that it adds as a second step "guiding the yarn supplied by said displaced yarn feeds to a point adjacent the yarn supplied by the yarn feeds immediately behind said displaced yarn feeds whereby the needles nearest the yarn feeds immediately behind said displaced yarn feeds will be simultaneously supplied with an increased number of yarns."

The product of the plaintiffs' machine is a sweater with rib knitted cuffs, the body being knitted in interlock. Although the claimed invention is not limited to the knitting of such fabrics, its only commercial use has been in this field.

Interlock consists of two ribbed fabrics interlaced, one superimposed upon the other in such a way that the ribs of one fill the valleys of the other. When an interlock sweater is knitted on a circular knitting machine, two banks of needles — a vertical bank in the cylinder and a horizontal bank in the dial — are used. Each bank of needles consists of two groups, one group from each bank taking yarn from a different yarn feed than the members of the other group. A turntable supports cones of yarn, guiding and tension devices, and mechanisms variously called yarn feeds or yarn carriers which feed the yarn to the needles. As the turntable spins about the needles, cams cause the needles to operate in proper sequence so that, as the appropriate yarn feed passes by, the correct needle will be extended and take yarn and later be withdrawn to knit the stitch.

When cuffs come to be knitted, only one group of needles from the cylinder and one group from the dial are used, and two strands of yarn are fed simultaneously to the needles which are knitting at alternate yarn feeds so that the single rib of the cuff will have the same weight as the body of the sweater.

Prior to the plaintiffs' patent, in changing from interlock to rib and vice versa in a continuous operation, mechanisms known as stripers were employed. These, besides being rather complicated structures, necessitated slowing down of the knitting operation. The stripers fed the additional yarn to the needles knitting the cuff and cut and held it when the cuff was completed. The Philip patent does away with need for stripers, simplifies the whole operation and makes it possible to knit the cuff at the same speed as the body of the sweater was knitted.

The method of the patent accomplishes its purpose by the use of a machine in which certain yarn feeds are movable and are caused periodically to rise and swing away from the group of needles proximate thereto while the yarn which has been thus bypassed is guided to fixed yarn feeds, each of which trails one of the movable feeds. The fixed feeds are specially formed with notches so that they may catch the yarn from the displaced feeds and deliver it to a new group of needles simultaneously with the yarn from the fixed carriers. When it is desired to knit interlock, the carrier is simply moved back to its original position thus enabling the adjacent needles to take yarn.

"It is evident that the processes defined by (the claims) are intimately related to the particular apparatus disclosed. That apparatus will inherently carry out the steps set forth in the appealed claims, and the application does not disclose any other use to which the apparatus may be put. Conversely, the application does not suggest any way in which the steps claimed can be carried out except by the use of the apparatus disclosed." This statement from In re Washburn, 182 F.2d 202, 205, 37 CCPA 1094, is true in all respects of the Philip patent and it is at once apparent that the method claims of the patent in suit are descriptive of the operation of the machine of the specification and drawings.

"It is now well settled that operations which consist entirely of mechanical transactions, and which are only the peculiar functions of the respective machines which are constructed to perform them, do not constitute processes which are patentable in the United States," Black-Clawson Co. v. Centrifugal Engineering & P. Corp., 6 Cir., 83 F.2d 116, 119, or, as this Court put it in Jacquard Knitting Machine Co. v. Ordnance Gauge Co., D.C., 108 F.Supp. 59, 63, "A method patent will not be sustained if it is merely a description of the way in which a machine works."

To what use can a mechanism such as the attachment of the plaintiffs' patent with its displaceable yarn feeds and guides be put other than changing the knitting pattern without reducing speed, and how can a method of operating a multifeed knitting machine, the first step of which is the displacing of some of the yarn feeds to shift the yarn away from the needle bank, be carried out except by apparatus having some movable yarn feeds which can be displaced to shift the yarn in that manner? This patent does not suggest any way in which these operations can be carried out other than by the claimed apparatus. The displaceable yarn feeds, the yarn guides, the fixed feeds with their notches to catch the yarn, are the elements which together make up the whole of Philip's invention, and their function is to carry out the method of claims 20 and 21 and nothing else. The specification states, "the gist of the invention is the structure of the two types of yarn feeds mounted on the turntable and the mechanism which is provided for shifting adjustable yarn feeds," and Mr. Philip's testimony is to the same effect.

There is only one way in...