Safety Car Heating & Lighting Co. v. U.S. Light & Heat Corporation
| Decision Date | 19 October 1916 |
| Docket Number | 163-B. |
| Citation | 237 F. 646 |
| Parties | SAFETY CAR HEATING & LIGHTING CO. v. UNITED STATES LIGH & HEAT CORP. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of New York |
Duell Warfield & Duell, of New York City (C. H. Duell, F. P Warfield, H. S. Duell, and L. A. Watson, all of New York City, of counsel), for plaintiff.
Jones Addington, Ames & Seibold, of Chicago, Ill. (W. Clyde Jones and Arthur B. Seibold, both of Chicago, Ill., of counsel) for defendant.
The bill alleges infringement of Creveling patent, No. 747,686, dated December 22, 1903, which was adjudicated valid and infringed as to claims 1 to 8, inclusive, in a prior action against the predecessor of the defendant company. See Safety Car Heating & Lighting Co. v. United States Light & Heating Co. (D.C.) 222 F. 310, affirmed 223 F. 1023, 138 C.C.A. 651.
The present defendant is charged with marketing a structure embodying the essentials of the adjudicated patent. The claims insisted upon are the third, sixth, and eighth, but it will suffice to set out the third, as the others embody substantially the same elements. It reads as follows:
In the former case the complainant moved for a reference for an accounting of the infringing structures manufactured and sold by defendant's predecessor and known as constant current or stop charge and taper charge lighting systems, including later adaptations by this defendant, which were stated to be colorable modifications; but it was claimed in opposing affidavits that the later apparatus disclosed a principle of operation patentably different from Creveling's, and was indeed constructed under two prior patents to McElroy, No. 720,605, dated February 17, 1903, and No. 893,533, dated July 14, 1908, describing a voltage or potential regulation to which the defendant connected an ampere hour meter for battery protection, claimed to have been invented by one Bliss, and functioning to cut off current passing to or from the battery.
Upon the filing of a supplemental bill alleging infringement by the later structures, a motion was heard for a preliminary injunction based upon the prior adjudication. It was urged by defendant that it had departed from the so-called constant generator output regulation during speed variations, and was operating a system described in two McElroy patents of which it was owner in combination with the ampere hour meter, and thereupon the motion for an injunction was denied. The answer of the defendant, in addition to the denial of infringement, contains a counterclaim under new equity rule 30 (198 F. xxvi, 115 C.C.A. xxvi), charging infringement by complainant of the McElroy patents in the manufacture and sale of its system, known as 'Safety Type F.' Considerable testimony of a highly complicated nature was taken in open court on behalf of both sides, much of which bears only remotely on the merits of the controversy.
For convenience it may again be stated that the Creveling patent discloses a generator which supplies current to the lamps and to a storage battery, from which the lamps are supplied when the train stops or travels at greatly reduced speed. The generator has a shunt field winding with a variable resistance in its circuit, controlled by a regulator having a current coil 8 'in the generator main circuit,' which is shown to be responsive to current changes, owing to the»opposing influence of field coil 9. By such regulating arrangement the electric current is maintained constant, though normally its tendency would be to increase or decrease according to the speed of the train, as the generator, it should be understood, is geared to the axle of the car. The structure embodies a relay which is subject to battery voltage and is automatically varied with changes in the lamp load, and which functions to protect the battery from overcharge.
The specification refers to modified structures. In Figure 1 the regulator coil is connected in circuit to maintain constant the total output of the generator. When the battery is being charged, while current flows to the lamps, there is a variation in the battery current, due to the demands upon it of the lamp load, but the total output of the generator remains constant. Figures 2 and 3 show a relay or solenoid having an opposing winding in the circuit, to neutralize the effect of the solenoid through wires in the lamp circuit, with the result that the resistance 15, which by its wire connections is in shunt with the regulator coil 8, is varied. In consequence of such arrangement the charging of the storage battery is determined by the relay, and is subject to variation by a lamp switch or resistance, which also causes a varying of the effect upon the regulator coil. In this manner the lamps are energized, including circuits 40 and 41 in series therewith. It is clear that Figure 2 differs from Figure 1, in that the resistance which is introduced by rheostat 15 is not introduced in the circuit of coil 9, but is in a circuit arranged as a shunt around coil 8, thus weakening the latter and causing a definite current to be delivered to the line for supplying both the battery and lamps. In this way the constant current output of the generator is modified, so as to supply sufficient current for the varying demands of the load. In Figure 3 is shown another modified construction attaining substantially the same result. Reference is made to a relay or solenoid 31 in shunt to the generator circuit by wires 45 in series with the resistance to the lamp circuit; that is to say, not across the generator mains, but connected across the lamps and between the resistance 18 to the lamp switch. A further detailed description of Figure 3 is unnecessary; it being sufficient to state that it shows a regulation for constant battery current which may be modified by changes in the lamp load without impairing constancy of generator output. The specification discloses a dual arrangement, viz., a generator which controls for constancy of current to compensate for speed changes, and supplementary means for protecting the battery from overcharge.
The opinion of this court in the former action states that the combination of the litigated claims was a new combination producing a new and useful result, and that the claims were entitled to a fairly liberal interpretation. As to this aspect of the controversy the opinion still obtains, since insufficient ground is shown for imposing a limitation requiring the regulating coil to be located in the main circuit. Merely changing the regulating coil from the main circuit to the battery branch, if its function remained unchanged, would not avoid infringement. But defendant contended that the claims under consideration were limited by the proceedings in the Patent Office, by the testimony of complainant's expert witness Hammer in the former suit and by counsel at the hearing, and that complainant, therefore, is precluded from asserting anything more than was allowed him in the Patent Office. These insistences were involved in considerable dispute, especially the statement that Mr. Hammer's testimony in the present suit was inconsistent with that given by him in the former suit. After reading his testimony in both suits in connection with the specification and Figures 2 and 3, it cannot justly be contended that his prior testimony limited the Creveling invention to maintenance of constant total generator output, regardless of variations in speed and lamp load; nor has he testified, as claimed, that the Creveling system is one wherein the dominating coil of the regulator must be connected in the main circuit. Counsel for defendant have seemingly overlooked the fact that the excerpts reproduced in their brief from Mr. Hammer's testimony in the former suit relate mainly to one form of construction, that illustrated in Figure 1, and that the claimed inconsistencies occurred in answers to assumptions embodied in certain questions put to the witness on cross-examination in respect to the capacity of the generator, etc. A careful reading of Mr. Hammer's testimony in both suits indicates clearly enough that from his viewpoint, as specified in Figure 1, the Creveling system discloses means for regulating for constant battery...
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Electro-Dynamic Co. v. United States Light & Heat Corporation
...device of Creveling. It illustrates a different plan of operation. Safety, etc., Co. v. United States, etc., Co. (D.C.) 233 F. 1007, and 237 F. 646. object of Kennedy was to improve either of these systems in respect of battery charging or overcharging; he was not concerned with control or ......