Shell v. Electric Auto-Lite Co.
| Decision Date | 24 April 1951 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 8065. |
| Citation | 98 F. Supp. 462 |
| Parties | SHELL et al. v. ELECTRIC AUTO LITE CO. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan |
Pillon & Pillon, and Gregory M. Pillon, all of Detroit, Mich., for plaintiffs.
John A. Blair and Harness, Dickey & Pierce, all of Detroit, Mich., for defendant.
This is a suit for infringement of plaintiffs' patent No. 1,968,225 pertaining to an invention and improvement in spark splugs. It contains two claims which are nearly identical and read as follows:
Defendant denies that its resistor spark plug infringes or that plaintiffs' plug is patentable. On the contrary it alleges that plaintiffs' spark plug is only a combination of old elements performing or producing no new nor different function nor operation than heretofore produced or performed by them. Defendant furthermore alleges that plaintiffs have only a paper patent and that their plug is inoperable.
Plaintiffs' plug is a metallic shell within which there is an insulated porcelain core threaded to receive a coiled electrode and plaintiffs claim that defendant's plug uses the same device.
Let us then discuss the coiled electrode, which, as part of a spark plug, is not new. In fact plaintiffs admit that the Schneider (German) No. 409,871, the Donat No. 1,290,121 and the Boisselot (French) 570,367 patents, all part of the prior art, have coiled electrodes. Plaintiffs' patent, however, has the aforesaid threaded or grooved porcelain and they claim that when the coiled electrode is fitted within threads of the porcelain it results in many advantages not before found in any prior art because of the attendant cooperation between the coiled electrode and the threaded porcelain.
Our first question then is to determine whether defendant's spark plug has a coiled electrode and our answer depends upon just what is meant by the term. Plaintiffs insist that every part of the plug that carries the current from ingress to egress is "the electrode" while defendant maintains that the electrode is only that part of the plug where the spark jumps the gap resulting in or causing the ignition.
Webster's New International Dictionary (Second Edition), unabridged, defines an electrode as:
We are inclined to conclude that it is a term that has been loosely used but that strictly speaking it is that portion of the conductor where the electricity flows from one state of matter to another and that when this carrying agency within the plug is all one from terminal screw to gap, it is useless to differentiate between whether the entire one piece is the electrode or just the point from which the electric current enters or leaves.
Examining the plugs involved, therefore, we learn that plaintiffs' and mentioned prior art plugs, except Schneider's, all have but one conductor from terminal screw to gap. Defendant's does not. Defendant's plug has a combination of elements both carrying and "resisting" the electricity. First there is the contact spring which is coiled and fits into a chamber of porcelain that is threaded.
This is the part that allegedly infringes.
Then comes the resistor made of a ceramic and carbon; and then that part of its plug that defendant insists is the "electrode" because there is where the spark is made.
Of course the entire assembly carries electricity but so does the terminal screw, the ignition cable and so on back through the ignition coil. Surely the designation "electrode" as a unit of the electrical system must begin and end some place along the course by which the electricity travels. And so we hold that defendant's spring is not truly part of the electrode in defendant's plug. It merely serves as a conductor of electricity just as the cable which is fastened to the terminal screw. Furthermore, this spring must move axially in the bore to compensate for variation in the length of the other parts of the plug due to temperature changes during use.
But even if we do consider the spring and resistor as part of the electrode, we must find that plaintiffs are circumscribed by their own claims which are entitled to a narrow construction at most.
According to the file wrapper plaintiffs were granted a patent when they revised their claims to cover a "core being threaded for the reception of the coiled portion of said electrode".
That was their plug's controlling feature and we hold that they are estopped from urging a broader construction. D'Arcy Spring Co. v. Marshall Ventilated Mattress Co., 6 Cir., 259 F. 236; Directoplate Corp. v. Donaldson Lithographing Co., 6 Cir., 51 F.2d 199; Exhibit Supply Co. v. Ace Patents Corp., 315 U.S. 126, 62 S.Ct. 513, 86 L.Ed. 736.
Defendant's spring does not fit into the threads of the porcelain.
But function and construction are more important than terminology and in order that there be infringement both devices must operate the same. Holley v. Goldner Sales Co., 6 Cir., 107 F.2d 494. Here the plugs are not constructed the same nor do the supposedly similar parts function the same.
Defendant's grooves in the porcelain run one way, the coils of defendant's spring run the opposite. Plaintiffs' coil and threaded porcelain are aimed to be received one by the other. On the contrary, defendant's thread and coil ordinarily would repel each other.
The evidence is uncontradicted that plaintiffs' plug won't work unless the coiled electrode is fitted into the threaded porcelain — while defendant's plug won't function if the coil does fit into the porcelain grooves. Plaintiffs avoid — defendant seeks — displacement.
The proofs show that plaintiffs' coil is larger than the bore — while defe...
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Tweedale v. Sunbeam Corporation, 13945.
...words be given a broader construction so as to include defendant's thermostat as an equivalent within their meaning. Shell v. Electric Auto Lite Co., D.C., 98 F.Supp. 462. See also Universal Oil Products Co. v. Globe Oil & Refining Co., 7 Cir., 137 F.2d 3. In the latter case the court said ......