Van Kannel Revolving Door Co. v. Winton Hotel Co.

• Decision Date: 08 March 1920
• Docket Number: 452.
• Citation: 263 F. 988
• Parties: VAN KANNEL REVOLVING DOOR CO. v. WINTON HOTEL CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio

263 F. 988

VAN KANNEL REVOLVING DOOR CO. v. WINTON HOTEL CO.

No. 452.

United States District Court, N.D. Ohio, Eastern Division.

March 8, 1920

Titian W. Johnson, of Washington, D.C., and Hull, Smith, Brock &amp West, of Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiff.

Calfee & Fogg, of Cleveland, Ohio, Trabue, Doolan, Helm & Helm, of Louisville, Ky., and Christopher & Robblee, of Cleveland Ohio, for defendant.

WESTENHAVER District Judge.

Plaintiff's bill is based upon reissue patent No. 14,225, reissued February 6, 1917, being a reissue of original United States letters patent No. 836,843, issued to T. Van Kannel November 27, 1906. The invention claimed therein relates to an automatically collapsible revolving door, such as is commonly used at the street entrance to public buildings. The defendant has purchased, installed, and is using a collapsible revolving door manufactured and sold by the Atchison Revolving Door Company, which has assumed and undertaken the burden and expense of defending this suit. The defenses are (a) that the claims in issue of this reissue patent are void for lack of novelty and lack of invention (b) that it is void because no inadvertence, accident, or mistake is shown whereby the original patent is inoperative or invalid; and, even if so, the reissue was not applied for with due diligence; and (c) that, if valid at all, these claims must, in view of the prior art, as declared by numerous decisions, be so limited that defendant's door does not infringe.

The claims in issue of this reissue patent are Nos. 1, 2, 3, 13 22, 23, and 24. Of these the first four are rewritten and rephrased claims of the original patent, and the remaining three are new or added claims. Claims 1, 2, 3, and 22 cover in various forms, as the predominating element, a flexible tie connecting together and holding in position the radial wings of the door, automatically releasable, whereby, upon the release of any one, all the wings will fold or collapse. Claims 3 and 23 cover in various forms as a predominating element a hanger disc or plate, with grooves therein located in the spindle or center post, serving as hinges for the radial wings, whereby a series of wings may be collapsed to a folded position. Claim 24 embodies both elements of hanger plates with grooves and flexible ties. Upon the issue of invalidity for lack of novelty and lack of invention defendant contends that all these claims are in substance and legal effect the same as claims 1, 2, 3, 13, and 14 of original patent No. 836,843, all of which have, in one case or another, been held to be invalid. The differences, if any, between the reissue and the original claims can be most conveniently stated after a brief review of this prior litigation and of the results reached therein.

The inventor, Van Kannel, was in 1888 granted a patent, being No. 387,571, for a revolving door, having a series of radiating wings, rotating in a casing. It did not have any automatic or collapsible features, although the desirability of providing for the egress of an excited or panic-stricken crowd was foreseen and disclosed therein. On August 14, 1900, he was granted patent No. 656,062 for an automatically collapsible revolving door, designed to provide for rapid exit by automatic collapse in the event of panic or other necessity therefor. Later, on November 27, 1906, he was granted an additional patent for an automatically collapsible revolving door, being No. 836,843, of which the one now involved is a reissue. The 1900 and the 1906 patents have been extensively litigated, and defendant contends that all questions touching the validity of the claims now in dispute of the reissued patent have been fully considered and adjudged adversely to plaintiff's present contentions. These decisions are as follows: Van Kannel v. Revolving Door & Fixture Co. (2 C.C.A.) 219 F. 741, 135 C.C.A. 439; Louisville Trust Co. v. Van Kannel (6 C.C.A.) 231 F. 166, 145 C.C.A. 354; Van Kannel Revolving Door Co. v. Nathan Straus (2 C.C.A.) 235 F. 135, 148 C.C.A. 629; Van Kannel Revolving Door Co. v. Lyon & Healy (7 C.C.A.) 247 F. 329, 159 C.C.A. 423; Van Kannel Revolving Door Co. v. Uhrich, decision and opinion by Pollock, District Judge, 247 F. 344.

The nature and elements of plaintiff's invention and of the state of the art respecting revolving doors are so fully stated and described in these several decisions that it is unnecessary to go over the same ground. The conclusions reached in these cases are in accord; indeed, there is an unusual uniformity, not only in the result, but in the reasoning by which the results have been reached. Briefly, my understanding of these decisions is that the Van Kannel 1900 patent, No. 656,062, was held to be the pioneer patent for an automatically collapsible or panic-proof revolving door, and that the inventor was entitled to a wide range of mechanical equivalents, and his patent claims to a reasonably broad construction. More specifically, as regards devices for hinging the radial wings to the spindle or center posts, and devices for connecting or tying the radial wings in an automatically detachable manner, it was held that any device which would produce substantially the same result was an infringement. Accordingly the 1900 patent was in all these cases uniformly sustained, and its claims protected against infringement, as against any construction having any form of hinge or tying device which permitted these results to be realized. On the other hand, and in view of this broad construction, the more specific and detailed combinations embodied in the litigated claims of the 1906 patent, No. 836,843, were held to be invalid for lack of invention, as double patenting to the same inventor. Nor do I understand that this invalidity resulted from the particular phraseology used in the later patent in describing the connecting device.

Thus in Van Kannel Revolving Door v. Revolving Door & Fixture Co., 219 F. 741, 135 C.C.A. 439, Mayer, District Judge, had sustained the validity of claims 1, 2, 3, and 8 of the earlier patent, and of claims 13 and 14 of the later patent, and had held that claims 1 and 2 of the later patent were invalid. This holding as to claims 1 and 2 of the later patent is based upon the disclosures of the earlier patent, but as to claims 13 and 14 he held that they stated a combination of elements from which 'we have apparently, a new structure in commerce, a new result for operative panic-proof doors, and all described with words of limitation sufficiently definite and limited to save the combination from all the prior art.' The Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, sustained this decision, except so far as it found claims 13 and 14 to be valid, and reversed as to these, holding that they also were anticipated by the disclosures of the earlier patent. Judge Mayer had stressed particularly this feature of the flexible tie, and the great merit thereof in permitting all the doors to collapse upon the release of any one fastening, and the easy restoration of all the wings to their normal position;...