Universal Winding Co. v. Abbott Mach. Co.
| Decision Date | 21 May 1942 |
| Citation | 43 F. Supp. 647 |
| Parties | UNIVERSAL WINDING CO. v. ABBOTT MACH. CO. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Hampshire |
Dike, Calver & Porter, of Boston, Mass. (George P. Dike, of Boston, Mass., of counsel), for plaintiff.
Roberts, Cushman & Woodberry, of Boston, Mass. (Robert Cushman, of Boston, Mass., of counsel), for defendant.
The plaintiff in this action seeks a declaratory judgment declaring invalid certain claims in Letters Patent of the United States No. 2,160,810, issued June 6, 1939, to E. J. Abbott, assignor of the defendant; or, if valid, that the patent is not infringed by two certain machines made by the plaintiff.
The defendant filed a counterclaim charging infringement of the Abbott patent by the plaintiff.
The plaintiff's position is that the claims in question, Nos. 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 28, are void for lack of novelty, in view of the prior art, and that the things claimed in 14 and 28, — the principal claims involved, — simply represent the putting together of old elements with the exercise of mere mechanical skill, and not patentable for that reason.
After several hearings the matter has been somewhat simplified by plaintiff's admission of infringement if the claims mentioned are valid, and by the fact that little, if any, reliance is placed by the defendant on any claims, except Nos. 14 and 28, leaving the question of the validity of those claims as really decisive of the issue.
The controversy relates to automatic machinery for winding yarns about a core or pin to make filling bobbins, so-called, for use in shuttles of looms.
In weaving cloth, the threads running lengthwise of the cloth are called the warp threads and those running crosswise are called the weft or filling threads, the latter name being more commonly used in the textile industry. The package consisting of a wooden pin or bobbin, so-called, with the thread wound around it is called a "filling bobbin" or "filling wound bobbin" when the thread is to be used for the filling of the cloth, and when it is wound on the bobbin in the particular way it has to be wound to be useful for that purpose. The filling wound bobbin is held at its butt end in the cavity of the shuttle and the thread is paid out through an eye in the end of the shuttle near the tip of the bobbin. The great speed at which the thread must be delivered and the limited space within the shuttle require a special form of winding of the thread, so that it may come off without tangling or breaking. This is accomplished by laying the thread on the bobbin in a series of layers like nested cones, each cone-shaped layer being wound upon the next preceding one and being axially displaced slightly toward the tip of the bobbin as winding proceeds. The finished thread mass has a cylindrical shape throughout the greater part of its length, terminating toward the tip of the bobbin in a tapered or cone-shaped surface. The cylindrical part of the surface, however, is formed not by cylindrical layers of thread, one over the other, but by the bases only of the several nested cones of wound thread. By this method of winding the thread on the bobbin the growth of the thread mass as the winding proceeds is in a lengthwise or axial direction from the butt to the tip end of the bobbin. This method of winding and form of package is necessary so that the thread may be unwound by being drawn lengthwise from the tip of the bobbin; that is, always from the last cone-shaped layer of thread nearest the tip, so that the thread in coming off does not have to drag across the length of the package, as it would do if the layers of thread were laid cylindrically throughout the whole length of the bobbin.
The essential parts of a winding-machine consist of spindle centers for grasping and rotating the bobbin on which the thread is wound; a thread-guide which lays each turn of the thread in the right position on the revolving bobbin, and some means such as a cam to move the thread-guide to and fro lengthwise of the bobbin. The shape of the finished package depends upon the movement of the thread-guide back and forth on the bobbin.
Automatic machinery for winding yarns has been in common use for more than eighty years. A notable example is found in the spool-winding art in which the automatic mechanism has been highly developed. In winding spools with thread, when one is filled the machine cuts a nick in the flange of the spool and catches the strand of thread therein. It then opens the spindle centers to let the spool of thread drop out and carries an empty spool into position. At the same time a strand from the thread-guide is placed across the end face of the spindle center to hold the thread in position for the new winding. When the spindle centers close on the new spool the thread-guide moves into position for laying the thread on the spool, the winding starts immediately, and the process continues automatically and with astonishing rapidity.
The evolution of automatic spool-winding machinery has reached such a point that in a machine in use in a mill at Groton, Connecticut, since 1929, shown in evidence by moving pictures, the stroke of the thread-guide lengthens slightly at the end of each stroke to compensate for the slope of the heads of the spool, and the thread-guide, when desired, returns to begin winding at a predetermined point on the barrel of the spool, so that a specified number of yards of thread may be wound, with the last layer always terminating at the nick in the flange of the spool.
Other packages of yarns have also been wound with automatic machinery for many years, but, for some reason, not perfectly clear, automatic features were not applied to the winding of filling bobbins until the time of the Abbott invention. Before then the machines, which had been in common use for many years in winding filling bobbins, required the services of an operator to tend them. When the winding of the bobbin was finished the operator had to manually cut the thread or yarn, remove the wound package, replace it with an empty bobbin, fasten the thread on it, return the thread-guide to the starting position and start the winding again.
In the Abbott machine of the patent, as well as in the plaintiff's Universal machines, the things the operator formerly had to do are done automatically.
The Abbott machine comprises an endless track and a number of winding units which travel about the track winding as they go. Adjacent to one end of the track is a stationary mechanism which causes the completed bobbin to drop into a receptacle, cuts the thread, returns the thread-guide to the starting point, inserts an empty bobbin, fastens the thread and starts winding again.
The plaintiff has two machines, alleged to infringe, called Universal machine, Type A, and Universal machine, Type B. The difference is unimportant. Each has a series of stationary winding units which do not travel around any track. Instead, each unit has a servicing mechanism of its own which does the same things, when the winding is completed, which are done in the Abbott machine when the completed bobbin reaches the stationary mechanism referred to. All three machines are completely automatic. They all obtain the same result in substantially the same way, although they differ in appearance, the Abbott machine having one servicing mechanism for the entire series of traveling units, and the plaintiff's machine having a servicing mechanism for each stationary unit. The magazines for the bare bobbins are also differently arranged.
A machine of the plaintiff, called Universal No. 90, manually tended, was the standard machine for winding filling wound...
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Abbott Machine Co. v. Universal Winding Co., 3832.
...In the case at bar the district judge held that the claims in issue failed to meet either test. He said in his memorandum opinion 43 F.Supp. 647, 651: "Here I can see no joint function performed which produces a new result or any old result in any other way than it was formerly accomplished......