Thermo King Corp. v. WHITE'S TRUCKING SERVICE, INC.
| Decision Date | 22 May 1959 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 8701-M. |
| Citation | 173 F. Supp. 438 |
| Parties | THERMO KING CORPORATION and Dawes Manufacturing Company, Plaintiffs, v. WHITE'S TRUCKING SERVICE, INC., and Transicold Corporation, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Florida |
Leonard, Street & Deinard, Minneapolis, Minn., Benedict Deinard, Harold D. Field, Jr., Minneapolis, Minn., Myers, Heiman & Kaplan, Miami, Fla., Eugene C. Heiman, Miami, Fla., of counsel, for plaintiffs.
Mead, Browne, Schuyler & Beveridge, Washington, D. C., Francis C. Browne, Washington, D. C., Schwarz & Zinn, Miami, Fla., Bart L. Cohen, Miami, Fla., of counsel, for defendants.
This is an action for patent infringement. The plaintiff Thermo King Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "Thermo King"), alleges that it is the owner of certain patents, numbered 1, 2 and 3 for purposes of identification, which are being infringed by the defendants, White's Trucking Service, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as "White's"), and Transicold Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "Transicold"). It seeks to have said patents declared valid, that the defendants have infringed same and to have judgment rendered permanently enjoining the defendants from further infringement, for damages, costs and attorney's fees.
The patents in suit and the claims relied upon by plaintiff are:
Dawes Manufacturing Company appeared generally as an interpleaded plaintiff, purporting to have acquired by assignment all rights and interest held by interpleaded plaintiff, Frez-O-Mat Corporation in Jones Patent 2,509,099. Frez-O-Mat, before dissolution in July, 1952, was the owner of an interest in whatever rights Thermo King obtained in said patent.
This action has been dismissed as to the other claims of said patents and as to the interpleaded plaintiffs.
The defendants admit the issuance of the patents in suit, but deny their validity and infringement thereof and have counterclaimed for declaratory judgment of non-infringement and invalidity, together with additional relief by way of damages, costs and attorney's fees. They allege the patents in suit are copied from well-known prior art as exhibited in the following patents which were introduced in evidence:
Plaintiff Thermo King is a Minnesota corporation, with its principal place of business at Minneapolis, and is the owner of the three United States Letters Patent in suit, all of which were granted to plaintiff as assignee of the inventor, Frederick M. Jones.
Defendant White's is a Florida corporation, having a regular and established place of business in the City of Miami, County of Dade, State of Florida.
Intervening defendant Transicold is a California corporation and is the alleged manufacturer of the alleged infringing equipment.
The patents in suit have to do with transportation refrigeration. The transportation of perishable and frozen food products by truck has become an important element in our national economy and is made practical by the use of refrigeration. Naturally, those engaged in this character of business are keenly interested in the development in this field and particularly in the most effective means of preserving food products by maintaining proper temperature in transit, under all climatic conditions. The rapid growth of this character of transportation in the past two decades has challenged the inventive genius of those interested and many of the patents issued during this period have to do with the combination of certain non-patentable elements, or in other words, the assembling of available components, which have been utilized in securing the desired results.
The patents in suit relate to a closed-circuit transport-refrigeration system. The system consists, essentially, of a compressor (pump), which during the normal refrigerating cycle, compresses and heats the refrigerant gas and then passes the hot gas under high pressure to a condenser where the gas is cooled to a liquid. Then it passes to a storage tank, whence it passes to an expansion valve which controls the flow in response to a temperature condition of the evaporator. From the valve, the liquid passes into the evaporator where it extracts heat out of the cargo space and boils, changing from a liquid to a gas. It is finally sucked into the compressor as a gas to start its cycle over again.
There were two basic problems that required solution before such a system could be successfully operated in a transport vehicle carrying perishable or frozen food: (1) automatic regulation of engine speed of the refrigerating unit and (2) automatic control of defrosting.
The description contained in these various patents, with respect to the patentable idea, is highly technical and at times almost imaginary. It is admitted that there are certain basic elements involved in plaintiff's patents which are within themselves not patentable.
As to the claims in suit the plaintiff contends as follows:
Claims 1 to 4, inclusive, in Patent No. 1, comprise a combination, in substance, of four elements cooperating together to achieve a new result:
1. A fluid thermostat with its temperature-sensitive bulb in the cargo chamber, producing a distinct hydraulic force within the closed system of the thermostat itself;
2. An expansible chamber (bellows) which is expanded or contracted by the hydraulic force, depending on the temperature of the cargo chamber;
3. A connection between the expansible chamber and the engine governor and throttle; and
4. A mechanism to move the throttle with a snap-action between high and low positions in response to a magnetic force, so that the engine will run either at maximum speed or at minimum speed and not waiver between.
Claim 6 in Patent No. 2 comprises a combination of the following elements cooperating together to achieve a new result:
1. A condenser with an inlet and outlet;
2. An evaporator coil with an inlet and outlet at its opposite ends;
3. The refrigerant line connecting the condenser and evaporator;
4. The Jones' superheated gas by-pass line from the condenser inlet to a point in the evaporator "between its opposite ends";
5. The hot-gas valve for defrosting;
6. A compressor continuously operating during defrosting; and
7. A "condition responsive control device" connected to the hot-gas valve which initiates defrosting when the need for it exists.
As to Claims 1 to 5, inclusive, and 13, in Patent No. 3, the gist of the patent is the electrical control circuit for automatically initiating and terminating defrosting, and the claims under this patent comprise a combination, generally, of the following elements cooperating together to achieve a new result:
1. Compressor functioning as a source of hot gas;
2. A switch which energizes a solenoid to open
3. The hot-gas valve, and turns off
4. The circulation fan in the cargo chamber, and
5. A thermostat which senses the rising temperature of the evaporator and terminates the defrost when the frost is melted.
It is contended that the combination which is the gist of the plaintiff's patents produced a novel and useful result by the conjoint action of the hydraulic and the magnetic forces, as the Patent Office determined.
It is admitted that these particular elements within themselves are not patentable but it is the particular combination of these elements in the plaintiff's patents which produces the desired temperature and defrosting operation. The plaintiff contends vigorously that the method it employed in achieving this particular result is the only manner in which that result could be achieved.
The defendants contend with equal vigor that the claims contained in the Jones patents are merely copies of claims in the prior art above-named, and that there are different methods by which the defrosting result could be achieved. They allege, and offered evidence in support of their contention, that while their unit uses the same elements and achieves the same result both in maintaining uniform temperature and defrosting as the plaintiff's patents, the elements are utilized in a different manner wholly independent of plaintiff's method.
The plaintiff produced at the trial two one-piece refrigeration units of its own manufacture, which are normally installed in the "nose" of a trailer; three exhibits purported to be a Transicold refrigeration unit of the "underslung" type procured from an unidentified party in Kansas; and four elements characterized by plaintiff as an automatic defrost conversion kit consisting of commercially available components, including a pressure switch, a thermostat, a relay and connecting wires. The source from which plaintiff obtained the components was not adequately identified.
The three-piece...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Upjohn Company v. Peoples Service Drug Stores, Inc.
... ... Union Carbide & Carbon Corp. v. White River Distributors, Inc., D.C.Ark.1954, 118 ... ...