Trico Products Corporation v. Perfection Products Co.
| Decision Date | 18 May 1927 |
| Docket Number | No. 1034.,1034. |
| Citation | 19 F.2d 173 |
| Parties | TRICO PRODUCTS CORPORATION v. PERFECTION PRODUCTS CO. et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan |
Barton A. Bean, Jr., of Buffalo, N. Y., and Whittemore, Hulbert, Whittemore & Belknap, of Detroit, Mich., for plaintiff.
Barthel, Flanders & Barthel, of Detroit, Mich., for defendants.
The suit is brought for infringement of automatic windshield cleaners, United States patent No. 1,522,344, and also for unfair competition. If the patent is valid, it is admitted that the defendants infringed. The validity of the patent is, however, attacked on the ground that invention is lacking, and that the claims of the patent were anticipated by the several patents issued in the automatic windshield cleaner art to one Folberth.
The plaintiff's device, called the "Trico," is an automatic windshield cleaner comprising an oscillating wiper, a rock shaft, and a swinging or oscillating vane piston, adapted to receive direct applications of atmospheric pressure; the wiper, rock shaft, and vane piston being directly connected to oscillate simultaneously, and on the same pivotal axis. The prior art contained the Folberth automatic windshield cleaner, operated from the suction of an automobile engine, and comprising a pair of pistons connected by a spacing and connecting member having teeth on it to form a rack, a valve assembly, and valve-actuating members in the ends of the cylinders, and a pull and push rod connected to the valve-actuating mechanism, and extending into one of the pistons, a pinion having teeth engaging the toothed portions of the rack, the pinion being mounted on a shaft mounted in the cylinder, which shaft carried at its outer end the windshield wiper, the two pistons reciprocating in a straight line back and forth, containing the rack carrying the connecting member which engaged the teeth of the piston, translating the reciprocating motion of the piston into an oscillating or swinging motion of the shaft and wiper. The defendant's device is of the swinging or oscillating vane type, and is so identical both in parts and assembly that there can be no question that it is in imitation of plaintiff's structure, and infringes upon it, if valid, even though infringement were not admitted.
Defendant's principal contention is that vane type motors were old, having been used and disclosed in washing machines and in other devices, where the application of fluid pressure was available and...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Trico Products Corporation v. McGowan
...In 1927 its basic patents on the vacuum-operated windshield wiper were judicially determined to be valid. Trico Products Corp. v. Perfection Products Co., D.C., 19 F.2d 173, affirmed 6 Cir., 31 F.2d 522. These patents expired on January 25, By 1927 plaintiff had conquered the windshield wip......