Universal Incorporated v. Kay Manufacturing Corp.
| Decision Date | 22 March 1962 |
| Docket Number | No. 8479.,8479. |
| Citation | 301 F.2d 140 |
| Parties | UNIVERSAL INCORPORATED, Appellee, v. KAY MANUFACTURING CORPORATION, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
Ralph L. Chappell, New York City (Norman Block, Greensboro, N. C., Harry Jacobson, Kenyon & Kenyon, New York City, and Block, Meyland & Lloyd, Greensboro, N. C., on brief), for appellant.
D. D. Allegretti, Chicago, Ill. (Will Freeman and Blair, Freeman & Molinare, Chicago, Ill., on brief), for appellee.
Before SOPER, BOREMAN and BELL, Circuit Judges.
This suit was brought to enjoin infringement of United States Patent No. 2,480,667 issued on August 30, 1949 to William H. Neely upon an application filed February 21, 1944. The patent covers elongated corrugated wire springs for upholstered seat structures. The plaintiff is Universal Incorporated, an Ohio corporation, which is the assignee and owner of the patent. It has its principal place of business at Bedford, Ohio, and is engaged in the manufacture and sale of corrugated wire springs throughout the United States. The defendant is Kay Manufacturing Corporation, a New York corporation, with its principal place of business in Brooklyn. It is engaged in the same line of business as the plaintiff and for that purpose maintains a plant at High Point, North Carolina.
In the manufacture of cushioned seat structures, springs are mounted in parallel lines across an open frame with padding and an upholstery cover stretched over them. The specification of the patent, in its description of the patented spring, states at the outset that when assembled the spring "should be free of stiffness in localized areas and readily yield to the load applied when in use." To this end the patent discloses that the springs are elongated sinuously corrugated wires. Each spring comprises a body portion designated as the load supporting member with an attachment to the frame at one end, and a V-shaped supporting member for the body portion consisting of a short arm and long arm. The short arm of the V is coupled with an angular offset to the rear face of the supporting spring member between its ends, and the long arm is extended rearwardly of the body portion and attached to the frame. The result is a load carrying spring, supported at each end, from which a cantilever-like V-shaped portion extends rearwardly. The specification states that a spring so constructed will not be deformed when under load in the area in which the load bearing member and the supporting member are coupled together, but the latter will yield sufficiently to ensure full flexibility of the former so that it will properly contact the load and readily yield to its shape.
Figure 7 of the patent portrays the profile of the spring showing the load carrying member 26 and the V-shaped supporting member 27 with its short arm 38 and its long arm 37.
Figure 1 of the patent displays the end spring fitted in the frame of the back of an upholstered chair. A series of the springs are placed side by side longitudinally in the back of the chair. In the seat of the chair two V-shaped spring supporting members are shown.
Claim 1 of the patent is as follows:
The defendant's product which is alleged to infringe, is designed for the same general purpose as the spring of the patent. It is constructed of corrugated wire springs mounted in parallel lines on a frame in the back of the chair. An end view of the defendant's spring is depicted in the following drawing.
The defendant's spring is made of a single strip of flat corrugated material. The back rest or load bearing member 4 and the supporting member 1 are integrated as one continuous piece but the latter is bent back and interlaced with the former so as to overlie it from the end to the point 3 where it passes across the back rest and is held by a clip. After passing through the clip it is bent to form a V-shaped member of which, as in the patented device, one arm is attached to the back rest and the other arm to the frame of the seat structure. The defendant's V is a continuation of the wire which forms the back rest and, therefore, is not literally within the terms of Claim 1 which speaks of "an independent V-shaped sinuously corrugated supporting portion for said body portion"; but the defendant's spring in effect has a V with a short arm that is the portion from Clip 3 to the apex of the V and a long arm proceeding thence to the frame.
The defendant's main argument seems to be that its structure does not infringe the patent. In presenting this contention the defendant relies in passing to some extent upon the structural differences in the competing products above mentioned. Having in mind the terms of Claim 1, the defendant says that it does not have an independent V-shaped supporting member composed both of a short arm, which includes an offset portion rigidly coupled with the rear face of the load bearing member and also a long arm extending rearwardly of the load bearing member. Defendant argues that its V is not independent of the body portion but is integral with it in that the long arm of the V is interlaced with the body portion and runs to the upper end thereof and returns above and not under the face of the body portion. Defendant says also that one arm of its V is attached or clipped to the body portion at a single point and does not have an offset as does the short arm of the V of the patent.
In our view these differences are immaterial to the question of infringement. For the purposes which the patent is intended to serve the Defendant's V has a short arm which extends from the apex of the V to the clip and since this arm is rigidly coupled to the body portion at the body clip it may fairly be regarded to end at this point so that the defendant's V is actually independent of the body portion in the same way as the V of the patented device. We think also that defendant's structure has the equivalent of the angular offset of the Neely spring. The extension of defendant's wire through the clip to the end of the spring and the doubling of it back above instead of below the body portion serves the same purpose as the offset of the short arm of the V in the patent.
Defendant's main reliance in its argument of non-infringement does not rest, however, on these structural differences but upon the contention that the accused structure does not accomplish the basic purpose of the patent to furnish a spring free of stiffness in localized areas. Indeed, the defendant goes further and says that the plaintiff has abandoned this purpose in the commercial spring which it makes and sells to the trade.1 This phase of the controversy is best understood by reference to Plaintiff's Exhibit 11 which consists of three identical springs of the plaintiff, Plaintiff's Exhibit 11A, and one spring of the defendant, Plaintiff's Exhibit 11B, which are mounted in parallel lines in a model of the frame of the back of a seat structure. The springs of the plaintiff, 11A, vary from the spring depicted in Figure 7 of the patent in that there are four loops of the offset portion of the supporting spring above the V which are double with the body portion and are coupled by two clips, one at either end of the double area, to the body portion. In Figure 7 of the patent only two adjacent loops are coupled with one clip. Claim 2 of the patent, however states that at least two straight portions of the short arm of the V are rigidly coupled to the body portion.
Defendant's accused spring, 11B, differs somewhat in construction but serves the same purpose. Above the coupling of the arm of the V to the top of the springs there are six double loops. In other words, the area above the V in both springs is reinforced, in plaintiff's 11A by the doubling of four loops, and in defendant's 11B by the doubling of six loops. So similar are the two commercial structures in purpose and in function that the defendant admits that its structure is equivalent to the plaintiff's and that infringement is made out if the plaintiff's spring embodies the invention. Defendant, however, vigorously contends that the spring, 11A, departs from the concept of the patent in that reinforcement of the upper part of the spring by doubling the loops creates an area that is stiffer than other parts of the spring. The evidence clearly demonstrates this fact. Not only is it obvious that doubling the loops increases...
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