Uniflow Manufacturing Co. v. King-Seeley Thermos Co.
| Decision Date | 18 June 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 19825.,19825. |
| Citation | 428 F.2d 335 |
| Parties | UNIFLOW MANUFACTURING CO. and Jefferson Ice Company, Appellants, v. KING-SEELEY THERMOS CO., Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Robert F. Conrad, Washington, D. C., Charles R. Rutherford, Whittemore, Hulbert & Belknap, Detroit, Mich., on the brief; Charles L. Lovercheck, Erie, Pa., Arthur I. Neustadt, Washington, D. C., of counsel, for appellants.
Don K. Harness, Detroit, Mich., Cyrus G. Minkler, Harness, Dickey & Pierce, Detroit, Mich., on the brief, for appellee.
Before PHILLIPS, Chief Judge, and PECK and BROOKS, Circuit Judges.
This case involves the issue of infringement of a patent for an ice making machine. Appellant Uniflow Manufacturing Company (Uniflow) brought the action under 28 U.S.C. § 2201 for a declaratory judgment that U.S. Patent 2,753,694 (the 694 patent) owned by appellee King-Seeley Thermos Company (King-Seeley) was invalid and not infringed by Uniflow's ice making machine. Jefferson Ice Company, a distributor for Uniflow's products, intervened as a third-party plaintiff. King-Seeley counter-claimed, charging Uniflow and Jefferson Ice Company with infringement of claim 4 of the 694 patent.
At trial Uniflow did not contest the validity of claim 4 of the 694 patent (the only part of the patent that King-Seeley charged was infringed), but contended that claim 4 as limited by the prior art was not infringed by the Uniflow machine.
District Judge Thomas D. Lambros held claim 4 of the 694 patent to be infringed by the Uniflow machine. He granted a protective injunction on the counter-claim and an accounting for damages, as well as attorneys' fees to King-Seeley. By stipulation of the parties bond has been posted in lieu of the issuance of the injunction. Uniflow appeals from the judgment under 28 U.S. C. § 1292(a) (4).
To understand the patent involved here and the nature of this controversy it is necessary to examine the history of the flake ice making art. There are basically two kinds of ice making machines: those that produce formed or cube ice and those that produce flake or chipped ice. This appeal is concerned with the latter type. In this opinion we will refer to the King-Seeley patented machine as the Trow machine after its inventor and the accused Uniflow machine as the Kuebler machine after its inventor.
Prior to the introduction of the flake ice machines most of the ice used by restaurants, drug stores and similar establishments was either cubed ice or ice that was crushed or chipped from larger blocks supplied by commercial ice supply houses. Flake ice for purposes of this discussion is ice composed of small flakes or chips having a sufficiently high ice to water ratio that when placed in a storage bin it will not stick or mat together and easily can be scooped or measured.
By using one of the flake ice machines, a small establishment can manufacture its own flake ice at about one-tenth of the cost that previously was required to purchase the crushed or chipped ice from a commercial ice producer.
Prior to the invention of the Trow machine involved here a flake ice machine had been produced by Nitsch. The Nitsch machine as well as the two machines here involved were designed to freeze water on the interior wall of a chilled hollow cylinder. Chilling was accomplished by wrapping the outside of the cylinder with refrigerating coils similar to the ones in the ordinary domestic refrigerator. The metal cylinder positioned vertically was closed on the lower end with the upper end open. Water flowed into the cylinder and solidified into ice on the interior wall of the cylinder. A spiral shaped screw or auger is positioned in the center of the cylinder, situated so that as it was rotated by a motor mounted on the exterior of the cylinder. The edge of the auger scraped the ice from the wall of the cylinder. The ice rose on the spiral of the auger to the top of the machine as the auger rotated. The ice reaching the top was discharged into a storage bin.
The Nitsch machine never achieved significant commercial success because it contained a serious defect. If too many water droplets were trapped between the particles of ice, the ice would lump together and form a slushy ice that was not marketable. On the other hand if the ice flaked from the cylinder wall did not contain enough water, a mass was formed causing the auger to jam. Although there was a very narrow range in which the machine could operate, varying types of water in different parts of the country, which freeze at different rates, caused a serious problem of keeping the machine adjusted properly. The balance necessary to produce saleable ice in the Nitsch machine kept it from being commercially successful.
Both the Trow machine and the Kuebler machine were designed to produce saleable ice without jamming, by a method other than regulating the amount of water between the flaked ice.
The Trow machine operates in a manner similar to the Nitsch machine, with the frozen ice mixed with water rising in the cylinder due to the rotation of the spiral auger. At the upper end of the cylinder a "breakerhead" is mounted so that the rising ice is conveyed against the underside of a mold-board-like surface. The pressure of the slushy ice produced by the force upward by the spiral auger is sufficient to press the ice against the "breakerhead" and force most of the water from the ice and compress the ice so that when discharged into the storage bin it has a 70-30 or 80-20 ratio of ice to water. The "breakerhead" also breaks the ice into small compact chips or flakes. The demonstration of the machine to the District Court showed that, absent the "breakerhead," the Trow machine would produce only a slushy ice generally similar to that produced by the Nitsch machine, which is not marketable as flake ice.
The combination in the Trow invention of the prior art and the "breakerhead" for the first time made possible an inexpensive machine that would produce saleable flake ice, in sufficient quantities and with enough reliability to be practical commercially.
The significance of this invention is reflected in the number of machines produced and marketed by King-Seeley. It is also reflected in the number of companies that have sought to copy the Trow machine. King-Seeley's patent and especially claim 4 thereof has been found valid in a number of reported decisions, including one from this Circuit: King-Seeley Thermos Co. v. Millersville Mfg. Co., 296 F.Supp. 247 (M.D.Tenn.1968), aff'd, 412 F.2d 318 (6th Cir.); King-Seeley Thermos Co. v. Tastee Freez Industries, Inc., 357 F.2d 875 (7th Cir.); King-Seeley Thermos Co. v. Refrigerated Dispensers, Inc., 354 F.2d 533 (10th Cir.); King-Seeley Corp. v. Cold Corp. of America, 182 F.Supp. 768 (N.D.Ill.).
These decisions generally define the patented concept in the Trow machine as being a machine that produces commercially acceptable flake ice by mating the freezing idea of the Nitsch machine with a "breakerhead" which dewaters and compresses the ice into small compact pieces which then are discharged into the storage bin.
The Kuebler machine (Uniflow's accused device) also operates on the basic freezing method of the Nitsch machine. The water level in the Kuebler machine is lower than in the Trow machine. At the upper end of the Kuebler machine there is positioned a "deflector" which Uniflow contends operates on a different principle than the Trow "breakerhead." It is contended that the "deflector" causes the ice flaked from the cylinder wall to rotate more rapidly while moving upward and that this rotation of the ice in the cylinder, above the water level, produces ice at the "deflector" with less water content and that the ice is so dry that no dewatering is necessary. Uniflow contends that its "deflector" in addition to providing rotation merely breaks up the ice and forces it into the storage bin. During the demonstration before the District Judge, it was observed that some water did flow from the ice hitting the "deflector."
Claim 4 of the 694 patent
The parties limited the controversy at trial to the scope of claim 4 of the 694 patent and whether that claim was infringed by the Kuebler machine.
Claim 4 of the 694 patent reads:
King-Seeley and Uniflow produced expert witnesses whose qualifications were not assailed. Both experts testified as to the method of operation of the respective machines, and demonstrated the machines to the court. The District Judge thus had the benefit of observing the demonstrations of the machines as well as being able to evaluate testimony of the experts as they explained the operations of the machines.
Uniflow contends that its "deflector" serves to impart rotation to the ice and by this rotation the ice remains in the...
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