PUETT ELECTRICAL SG CORP. v. HARFORD AGR. & B. ASS'N

• Decision Date: 31 December 1949
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 4084.
• Parties: PUETT ELECTRICAL STARTING GATE CORPORATION v. HARFORD AGRICULTURAL & BREEDERS' ASS'N et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maryland

88 F. Supp. 360

PUETT ELECTRICAL STARTING GATE CORPORATION v. HARFORD AGRICULTURAL & BREEDERS' ASS'N et al.

Civ. No. 4084.

United States District Court D. Maryland.

December 31, 1949.

Piper, Watkins, Avirett & Egerton, Baltimore, Md., John W. Avirett, 2nd and R. Dorsey Watkins, of Baltimore, Md., Curtis, Morris & Safford, New York City, Daniel L. Morris and Arthur V. Smith, of New York City, for plaintiff.

J. Cookman Boyd Jr., of Baltimore, Md. and J. Stanley Preston and Oscar W. Jeffery, of New York City, for defendants.

WILLIAM C. COLEMAN, Chief Judge.

This is a patent infringement and unfair competition suit involving starting gates for horses in use on racetracks.

The plaintiff, Puett Electrical Starting Gate Corporation, hereinafter referred to as Puett, is a California corporation and for the past ten years has been engaged in manufacturing starting gates and leasing them to racetracks in various parts of the country. One of the defendants, Harford Agricultural & Breeders Association, hereinafter referred to as Harford, is the proprietor of the racetrack at Havre de Grace, Maryland, and the other defendant, United Starting Gate Corporation, a New York corporation, hereinafter referred to as United, is the owner of a gate used at this racetrack and leased to Harford.

There are two patents in suit, Harris No. 2309952, filed November 6, 1940 and issued February 2, 1943; and Whann No. 2435729, originally filed September 9, 1941 and issued February 10, 1948. Both defendants are charged by Puett with having infringed both of these patents. One of the defendants, United, is also charged with unfair competition as well. Both defendants deny infringement and also assert, as a defense, invalidity of both of the patents on various grounds hereinafter specified. United also denies any unfair business practices.

The evolution of means employed for keeping horses in line and starting them in races involves, going back to very early times, a number of different methods. In early days, the horses were merely lined up across the track and kept in position as nearly as could be accomplished by the riders themselves, and the starter with his assistants, and were sent off by waving or dropping a flag. False starts requiring the horses to be called back were naturally quite frequent under this method. Next, a tape was placed across the track with devices for raising it or snapping it back at the proper time. This method also was not very satisfactory. Then followed the adoption of stalls, some open both in front and rear, and some closed in the rear but open in the front, the assistant starters holding the horses' heads until released at the starting signal. Next followed the adoption of a tape or strap across the front of the stalls constructed so as to spring into the air at the starting signal, but again, these later devices were not satisfactory. The strap barrier was insufficient to resist the impact of an unruly horse and also was not adequate to prevent the animal from at times lunging free under it. The final stage in the evolution of methods for starting horses came with gates or doors on the front of the stalls operated mechanically so as to accomplish what had previously not been accomplished by the other methods, namely, insuring, in addition to satisfactory means for rapidly and simultaneously opening the gates of every stall in a row, that each horse will be prevented from rushing the start, that is, breaking away prematurely, unless a horse becomes extremely unruly while in his stall awaiting the start, in which event the front doors of the stall are so constructed as to open and release such horse, and to permit of these doors being again closed and the horse replaced therein if not disqualified, without disturbing the retention of all the other horses in line. The plaintiff claims that starting gates, constructed under the two patents in suit which it contends have been infringed by defendants, embody certain new and valuable improvements in the art as just briefly described.

The earlier and broader of the two plaintiff patents in suit, namely, Harris patent No. 2309952, involves a device with mechanical and magnetic means in combination for latching and holding two metal gates in front of every stall angularly closed, and for releasing and opening the gates simultaneously upon the de-energization of the magnetic means. The patent points out that mechanical means previously employed for holding gates in closed position have sometimes failed because the latching means are restrained from immediately unlatching by pressure or friction between the mechanical parts. So, in this patent, the pair of gates is held closed by a latch mechanism, with parts that are interengaged and held in such position by magnetic means, the latch being operable upon de-energization of the magnetic means so as to permit pressure of the gate against the latch mechanism to disengage the mechanical parts and permit the gates to open. This patent embraces ten claims but only three of them are in suit, namely, claims 1, 2 and 4, of which No. 4 is the most typical of plaintiff's device and reads as follows: "In a race starting gate, the combination of: a pair of gates pivotally supported at the forward part of said starting gate, said gates being swingable from closed position in which said gates are angularly positioned with respect to each other and with their outer ends adjacent each other to an open position in which said gates are in substantial parallelism; latch means for releasably latching said gates in closed position, said latch means including a latch element on one gate, a latch lever on the other gate engageable with said latch element but movable to release said latch element magnetic means on the same gate as said latch lever for holding said latch lever in engagement with said latch element, and means for deenergizing said magnetic means to allow said latch lever to release said latch element for permitting said gates to open; and means for moving said gates into open position."

The second and later patent in suit, namely, Whann patent No. 2435729, represents a division of an earlier application, Serial No. 410412, filed September 9, 1941 on which Whann patent No. 2418807 was granted April 8, 1947. Whann No. 2435729 contains six claims, all of which are in suit. This patent is in the nature of an improvement over Harris No. 2309952 and the prior art in that it embraces an alleged different and better arrangement of the means for latching the doors or gates of the stall. In Harris, the magnetic device for controlling the latching means is mounted on the left-hand gate, whereas in Whann it is mounted directly on the superstructure. Otherwise, it is claimed by Puett that the two devices are basically the same, since both embrace the mounting of an arm on the left-hand gate, this arm cooperating with an electric magnet so that this gate is held closed by energizing the magnet, and it in turn, by latching means, keeps the other, or right-hand gate closed, and when the magnet is deenergized both doors instantaneously fly open.

Claim No. 3 of the Whann patent is claimed by plaintiff to be the most typical and reads as follows: "A starting gate having a superstructure including a plurality of partitions, a pair of doors between two adjacent partitions, said doors having pivot means and being swingable from a closed position wherein the side edges of said pair of doors farthest from said pivot means are adjacent to each other, to an open position where the doors are substantially parallel to each other, holding means for holding one of said doors of said pair in closed position, said holding means including: arm means rigidly mounted on said door and extending at an angle from the plane of said door, said arm means having a free end, a member having a pair of ends, means pivotally mounting said member at one of its ends on said free end of said arm means, a solenoid provided with an armature, means attaching said solenoid to a stationary part of said superstructure and means pivotally attaching said armature on a fixed pivot adjacent to said solenoid, the other end of said member being in engagement with said armature when said door is in closed position and during the time said armature is in engagement with said solenoid while being attracted thereby, and a plate member having means adapted to engage the other door and hold the same in closed position when said other door has been moved to closed position."

None of the other five claims in this Whann patent embrace any material change over claim 3, except that they all omit any reference to a plate member on the left-hand door, with means adapted to engage the right-hand door and hold the latter in closed position until the former is released by the magnetic element. In other words, except for this omission, the other five claims of the patent are different from claim 3 only in phraseology respecting mechanical design and functioning of the device.

Infringement.

The starting gate of United, which Puett claims infringes both of the patents in suit, is very similar in numerous structural features to the starting gates constructed in accordance with the specifications and claims of both of those patents. This is made clear by an inspection of the models introduced in evidence and which have been of very great help to the Court in comparing one device with another. That is to say (1) the general form of the metal superstructure in all three devices is the same; (2) they all have a solenoid magnetic device for holding the left-hand door of each stall closed until released manually by demagnetizing the armature and (3) they all have some form of device fastened to the left-hand door of each stall which enables that door to latch or hold closed the other or right-hand door when the solenoid is magnetized. But there is one difference immediately apparent. It is that...