Solar Corporation v. Borg-Warner Corporation, 11927.

• Decision Date: 09 July 1957
• Docket Number: No. 11927.,11927.
• Citation: 244 F.2d 940
• Parties: SOLAR CORPORATION, by Merger now Gamble-Skogmo, Inc., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BORG-WARNER CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

244 F.2d 940 (1957)

SOLAR CORPORATION, by Merger now Gamble-Skogmo, Inc., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BORG-WARNER CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 11927.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

May 24, 1957.

As Corrected on Denial of Rehearing July 9, 1957.

Andrew E. Carlsen, Minneapolis, Minn., Edward C. Grelle, Chicago, Ill., Douglas L. Carlsen, Minneapolis, Minn., for appellant.

Casper W. Ooms, C. G. Stallings, Chicago, Ill., Herbert J. Schmid, Robert C. Williams, Chicago, Ill., of counsel, for appellee.

Before FINNEGAN, LINDLEY, and SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judges.

LINDLEY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff's suit for infringement of the patents, Castner 2,470,140 claims 1, 4, and 5, reissue thereof 23,626, claims 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8, and Roth, 2,633,727 claims 1 and 3, resulted in a determination that all claims in suit were invalid, but that, if valid, defendant had infringed claim 1 of both Castner patents and claims 1 and 3 of the Roth patent, but not claims 4 and 5 of the original Castner patent, or claims 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 of the reissue patent. Upon appeal, plaintiff insists that the trial court erroneously held (1) the claims invalid; (2) that, in view of the prior art, Castner's and Roth's claims represent no invention over the prior art; and (3) that defendant had not infringed claims 4 and 5 of the original Castner patent, and claims 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 of Castner's reissue.

The patents have to do with an automatic washing machine in which an imperforate tub is mounted upon a vertical axis. In operation, clothes are inserted in the tub at the top and are washed by means of a reciprocal agitator which in effect churns the contents. In operating machines of this type the water therein is extracted and drained by spinning the tub rapidly, thereby producing centrifugal force by which the water is driven over the top of the tub. Two kinds of refuse result from this operation. The finely divided lighter particles of dirt thrown out of the clothes float on the water and collect on its surface as scum and are carried off by the water in rinsing. Heavier matters, such as grit and sand, settle at the bottom of the tub. Thus, the lighter refuse matter rises to the surface as scum and is "spun" or flushed out with the water. The heavier sediment tends to sink to the bottom. So, early in the art, the builders of such machines supplied traps at the bottom of the tub to collect the heavier sediment, from which it could be flushed out through a discharge conduit, when the tub was spun.

All claims involved have to do with patentee's specifically provided form and location of sediment trap and discharge tube. Claim one in each of the Castner patents reads as follows: "In a washing machine having a tub adapted to receive liquid and material to be washed and to be spun to centrifugally extract the liquid from the material, the tub being provided with a recess in its bottom to accumulate and trap sedimentary material during the washing operation and said recess having at least one outlet in its outer wall to discharge such trapped material centrifugally as the tub is spun, and the said recess being so shaped that such outlet will be spaced further from the axis of rotation than other parts of the wall whereby the trapped sedimentary material will work from opposite sides toward said outlet by centrifugal action."

The district court, after consideration of documentary evidence, physical exhibits, demonstrations of equipment in open court, and oral testimony of various witnesses, made findings of fact to the effect that Dunham, 2,274,402 of 1942, anticipated Castner's claim 1; that the teachings of Dunham, 2,274,402, King, 974,075, Wright, 1,850,821, Smith, 2,637,188, and Dyer, 2,313,928, were such that neither Castner nor Roth achieved patentable invention over them; that it was not invention "to provide a single annular trap in conjunction with the funnelled bottom of Castner, after the Dyer patent had shown the funnelled bottom construction with the annular sediment trap"; that claims 1 and 3 of Roth are not inventive over Smith, No. 2,637,188, and the original Castner patent; that defendant has certain intervening rights; that plaintiff's commercial success was not sufficient to be persuasive of invention upon Castner's part; that claim 1 of the original patent and of the reissue patent is anticipated; that claims 4 and 5 of the original patent, and 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 of the reissue patent are "invalid for failure to define any invention over the prior art, and that claims 1 and 3 of Roth are invalid for want of invention."

It is obvious that where, as here, the trial court has been called upon to pass upon the credibility of oral testimony and to observe and evaluate the results of manipulation of the devices in question before it, as well as documentary evidence, under Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil...