Vacuum Cleaner Co. v. American Rotary Valve Co.

• Decision Date: 30 September 1915
• Citation: 227 F. 998
• Parties: VACUUM CLEANER CO. v. AMERICAN ROTARY VALVE CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

227 F. 998

VACUUM CLEANER CO. v. AMERICAN ROTARY VALVE CO.

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

September 30, 1915

Charles Neave, William G. McKnight, Vernon M. Dorsey, and Frank C Cole, all of New York City, for plaintiff.

W Clyde Jones, of Chicago, Ill., and John Robert Taylor, of New York City, for defendant.

MAYER District Judge.

The object of the first patent is stated in the specification as follows:

'The object of the invention is to provide an apparatus by which the cleaning or removing of dust may be accomplished with ease and dispatch and to practically clean any suitable surface, object, or article from every adhering particle of dust or dirt which can be removed. In the present invention suction is utilized, so that the dust or dirt is sucked into the apparatus and entirely removed from the compartment or room in which the dust was originally. The apparatus employed comprises in combination a suction nozzle adapted to be moved over the surface to which it is applied for cleaning and having a narrow inlet slot, a suction-creating device capable of maintaining a sufficient vacuum, and impurities-collecting means between the nozzle and suction-creating device and suitably connected therewith for removing the impurities from the air. When the apparatus is employed for cleaning carpets or other fabrics, the air is forced to penetrate the fabric at the suction nozzle, whereby the dust is removed from the body of the fabric as well as from the surface without subjecting the fabric to any mechanical action that will wear it away. * * * The slot is restricted and narrow, and the bounding and defining lips thereof are so disposed that the outward mouth of the slot lies in what when the cleaner is in use constitutes the contact surface of the implement so that it will hug the surface to be cleaned.'

The claims are:

'1. In a suction-cleaning apparatus, the combination of a suction nozzle adapted to be moved over the surface to which it is applied for cleaning and having a narrow inlet slot, a suction-creating device capable of maintaining a sufficient vacuum, and impurities-collecting means between the nozzle and the suction-creating device and suitably connected therewith for removing the impurities from the air, substantially as described.

'2. In an apparatus for removing dust or dirt, the combination of a suction-creating device capable of maintaining a sufficient vacuum, an inlet head or shoe having an unobstructed elongated slot and so constructed that the edges of the slot may be brought into contact with the surface of the object to be cleaned, and a separator intermediate of and suitably connected with the suction-creating device and the inlet head or shoe for removing the dust from the air, substantially as described.

'3. In a suction-cleaning apparatus, the combination of a suction nozzle adapted to be moved over the surface to which it is applied for cleaning and having a narrow inlet slot, a power-operated suction pump, and impurity-collecting means between said nozzle and pump adapted to remove the impurities from the air and prevent fouling the pump while permitting the working vacuum to be maintained at the nozzle, substantially as described.

'4. A cleaner comprising a suction chamber, provided with a narrow inlet slot, the slot being bounded and defined by lips which lie in the contact surface of the cleaner, with the outward mouth of the slot lying in the plane of this contact surface, substantially as described.'

The defenses are (1) anticipation; (2) lack of novelty; (3) prior use; and (4) noninfringement.

The commercial vacuum cleaner art has grown to substantial proportions and has been developed in two general directions: (1) The installation of plants in large buildings; and (2) the use in smaller areas, business and home, of single implements operated by hand or electric motive power. So rapidly has the commercial art grown that this suits seems to involve a controversy of substantial importance financially (the gross business of the Vacuum Company from 1905 to September 27, 1907, aggregating over $800,000, and the plaintiff, as the Vacuum Company's reorganized successor, having received since 1909 about $270,000 in license fees), and thus the defendant has presented a vigorous defense, especially in respect of the prior art and a certain prior use, known in the litigation as the 'Westman defense.'

There is no doubt that Kenney, the patentee, was the founder of the present vacuum cleaner commercial art, and that, prior to his time, efforts in the same direction resulted either in indifferent success or in absolute failure, although as far back as 1869 inventors had turned their attention to the subject-matter here concerned. McGaffey patent, No. 91,145, same as Lake British patent.

Defendant insists that the development of the art is largely due to natural increase of buildings and greater desire for easy and effective methods of cleanliness, and also to the warnings of scientific men in respect of badly behaved germs which find their nesting and developing places more particularly in dust-laden fabrics and floors; but I suppose that even in 1869 prudent housewives and others would have welcomed a labor-saving device for removing dust from floors and furniture, and as early as 1896 Messrs. Young and Douglass appreciated the problem of seeking out the 'many nooks and corners not accessible to the broom, where the dust and dirt settle and accumulate, making nesting places for microbes and breeding disease. * * * ' But neither they nor any one else prior to Kenney accomplished the result sufficiently to found or maintain any substantial business enterprise based upon their alleged inventions.

The success of Kenney was not accidental, nor is this a case where previous meritorious inventions have failed for want of capital. Kenney was almost the story book inventor. In 1901, when he made his invention, he had a cash capital of not more than $500, and he was working on a salary of $40 to $50 per week.

Mr. Foley, consulting engineer during the construction of the Frick Building in Pittsburg, met Kenney in New York in 1901, and, learning of Kenney's apparatus, went to Kenney's small room in Trinity Place, where experimental work was being carried on. Foley was sufficiently impressed, so that, after negotiation, the Kenney system was installed in the Frick Building in May, 1902. The public demonstration of the operation of the Kenney vacuum cleaning installation was described in some Pittsburg newspapers, and thereafter the business grew by leaps and bounds, and after some changing of hands the patents are now owned by this plaintiff.

A history of the prior art will help to show why Kenney succeeded, where others theretofore failed. Like many combination patents, the principal elements of claims 1, 2, 3 of the first patent, speaking broadly, were old--i.e., (1) a suction-- creating device; (2) a cleaning tool; and (3) a separator. In claim 4, for the cleaning tool, the emphasized characteristics are: (1) A narrow inlet slot, bounded by (2) lips which lie in the contact surface of the cleaner, with the outward mouth of the slot lying in the plane of this contact surface.

The testimony of the two experts, Professors Reeve and Kinealy and the demonstrations in the courtroom,...