Wahl v. Carrier Manufacturing Co.

• Decision Date: 07 April 1966
• Docket Number: No. 15252.,15252.
• Citation: 358 F.2d 1
• Parties: Eugene A. WAHL and Vibra Screw Feeders Inc., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CARRIER MANUFACTURING CO., Inc., Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

358 F.2d 1 (1966)

Eugene A. WAHL and Vibra Screw Feeders Inc., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. CARRIER MANUFACTURING CO., Inc., Defendant-Appellant.

No. 15252.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

March 9, 1966.

Rehearing Denied April 7, 1966.

Thomas F. McWilliams, Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

Stanton T. Lawrence, Jr., New York City, Richard C. O'Connor, New Albany, Ind., Charles E. McKenney, New York City, Orbison, Rudy & O'Connor, New Albany, Ind., Pennie, Edmonds, Morton, Taylor & Adams, New York City, for appellees.

Before HASTINGS, Chief Judge, and KNOCH and CASTLE, Circuit Judges.

CASTLE, Circuit Judge.

Carrier Manufacturing Co., Inc., defendant-appellant, prosecutes this appeal from the judgment order of the District Court entered against it in an action brought by Eugene A. Wahl and Vibra Screw Feeders, Inc., plaintiffs-appellees,¹ charging Carrier with infringement of U.S. Patent No. 2,800,252, entitled Powder-Feeding Apparatus. Carrier asserted invalidity of the patent and denied infringement. Following trial of the issues the court made and entered detailed findings of fact and conclusions of law. The court held claims 14, 15 and 17 of the patent valid and infringed by Carrier's device designated as plaintiffs' Exhibit p-11.

The subject matter of the patent in suit is a powder-feeding apparatus capable of discharging powdered and granular materials into a medium or container at a predetermined volumetric rate. The patented structure embraces, among other things, a storage hopper from which the material is fed to a dispensing tube housing an auger rotated at a predetermined and constant speed. The tube and the auger are simultaneously vibrated by suitable means, the vibration being deliberate and controlled, imparting to the material being conveyed in the tube a constant density which enables the spaces between the flights of the screw to act as a continuous succession of measuring chambers metering the material, and causing it to be discharged from the open end of the tube at a predetermined volumetric rate.

The constant volumetric rate results in a constant weight rate, and the record discloses that accuracy of feed by weight, such as pounds per minute or tons per hour, is important in many industrial applications. The controlled vibration of the auger, which supplies the factor of constant density to the materials being measured and dispensed, permits the achievement of such operating accuracy as enables the apparatus to be successfully used for the measured feeding of such hard-to-handle materials as carbon black, including channel black, a light fluffy powder used in the process of manufacturing photograph records; dry filter cel used in commercial filtration processes and previously required to be slurried to obtain accurately measured feeding; and to meter sticky amorphous powders used in the chemical industries. Previous volumetric feeders were incapable of accurately measuring the dispensing of these and other hard-to-handle powdery or granular materials. It is not disputed that the plaintiffs' commercial structure, which embodies the elements of claims 14, 15 and 17, has enjoyed commercial success.

Claim 14 is typical² of the three claims found to be valid, and to be infringed by Carrier's accused apparatus. It reads as follows:

Claim 14. Apparatus for dispensing granular material or the like at a predetermined rate, comprising a member having a material-receiving portion and a material-discharge portion, an auger disposed in said member, means for rotating the auger about its axis to advance the material from the said receiving portion to said discharge portion, and separate power means for deliberately and controllably vibrating the auger during its rotation.

The main thrust of Carrier's contentions on appeal is that prior art references either establish such anticipation of Claims 14, 15 and 17 of the patent in suit as invalidates them or require a construction of the claim language which calls for "deliberately and controllably vibrating the auger during its rotation" in a manner which precludes a finding of infringement of the claims by Carrier's accused device. Carrier also contends the District Court's factual findings are deprived of the usual finality imposed by Rule 52(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (28 U.S.C.A.) because of remarks by the court, following the post-trial arguments, to the effect that the case was not an easy one to decide, and in which the court identified the technical area presenting difficulty and causing it concern.

The plaintiffs urge that substantial evidence supports the court's factual findings, and that the court's frank recognition that the tasks of resolving conflicting expert testimony, marshalling the pertinent facts, and analyzing the prior art, presented difficulty does not serve to detract from but actually emphasizes the applicability of Rule 52(a).

We agree with plaintiffs that like many patent infringement actions this one turns on ultimate technical facts the determination of which requires resolution of conflicts in the testimony of experts, and that the court's recognition of the difficulties inherent in arriving at findings in this technical area did not remove those findings, when made, from the scope of Rule 52(a).

Therefore, insofar as the detailed findings of the court, upon which it predicates its conclusions of validity and infringement, concern factual issues such as the use made of prior art, the nature of the improvement made over prior art, and the characteristics and operational functions of the patented structure and the accused apparatus, Rule 52 (a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (28 U.S.C.A.) applies. The court heard the testimony of expert witnesses in connection with these matters and witnessed the demonstration of the physical exhibits, including the operation of the accused apparatus. The scope of our review of such findings is therefore limited to a determination of whether or not they are "clearly erroneous". Armour & Co. v. Wilson & Co., 7 Cir., 274 F.2d 143, 151-157; Minnesota Mining and Mfg. Co. v. Technical Tape Corp., 7 Cir., 309 F.2d 55, 57; Aerosol Research Company v. Scovill Manufacturing Co., 7 Cir., 334 F.2d 751, 753. If they find support in the evidence we are bound thereby and there remains but the question of whether the court applied the correct legal criteria in reaching the ultimate conclusions it did.

The District Court found, on the basis of the documentary evidence furnished by the patents themselves and the expert testimony relating to their disclosures, that none of the prior art references cited and relied upon by Carrier³ is more pertinent than those references cited and considered by the Patent Office, and that none of the prior art references anticipates the patented structure. These findings are supported by a number of factors appearing from the evidence. In this connection there is substantial evidence from which the court was warranted in finding that the structure of the patent in suit is distinguishable from all the cited prior art references in that none of the prior machines or the patent claims, specifications, or illustrations pertaining thereto, discloses an arrangement for mounting the screw for vibration as a part of a vibratory system so that it can be deliberately and controllably vibrated in its environment, as called for in the claims (14, 15 and 17) here involved, to bring about the desired object and result of the patented structure, i. e., the reduction of hard-to-handle material to constant bulk density and causing it to flow into a measuring chamber where it is maintained in its state of constant bulk density and discharged at a predetermined gravimetric rate; that none of...