Wayne Mfg. Co. v. Coffield Motor Washer Co.

• Decision Date: 28 October 1915
• Docket Number: 4445.
• Citation: 227 F. 987
• Parties: WAYNE MFG. CO. et al. v. COFFIELD MOTOR WASHER CO. [1]
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

227 F. 987

WAYNE MFG. CO. et al. v. COFFIELD MOTOR WASHER CO. ^[1]

No. 4445.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

October 28, 1915

L. C Kingsland, of St. Louis, Mo. (John D. Rippey, of St. Louis Mo., on the brief), for appellants.

Richard J. McCarty, of Dayton, Ohio (Homer Hall, of St. Louis, Mo on the brief), for appellee.

Before HOOK, Circuit Judge, and YOUMANS and ELLIOTT, District Judges.

ELLIOTT District Judge.

This is an appeal by the appellants, hereinafter referred to as the defendants, from a decree in favor of the appellee, complainant below and hereinafter referred to as complainant, perpetually enjoining the defendants, their agents, etc., from making or selling or in any way disposing of water motors embracing or containing the inventions or improvements described in the claims of complainant's reissued patent, No. 12,719, for a water motor, with a provision in the decree appointing a master for the purpose of an accounting.

Complainant's patent was sustained in extended litigation in the Fourth Circuit. P.T. Coffield & Son v. Spears & Riddle et al. (C.C.) 169 F. 641; Coffield Motor Washer Co. v. A. D. Howe Co. (C.C.) 172 F. 668; A. D. Howe Machine Co. v. Coffield Motor Washer Co., 197 F. 541, 117 C.C.A. 37. An appeal from an order granting a preliminary injunction restraining these defendants in this action from infringing said patent was by this court determined adversely to the defendants, and the order granting such preliminary injunction was affirmed. 209 F. 614, 126 C.C.A. 608.

The intent, purpose, and a complete history of complainant's said patent, with drawings and specifications, are fully set forth in the foregoing citations. The different angles from which this patent has been attacked appear fully therefrom, and numerous alleged prior art patents, covering many forms of power generators, are referred to and described in these cases, and it appears that all of them, seriously urged by defendants here, were, with one exception, known to the defendants in these different suits, and were brought to the attention of the different courts in which the litigation has been pursued, and to the court below and this court upon the former hearing. Reference is made to the report of these cases, for all of these matters, for the purpose of saving repetition. The one exception referred to is the Bryan patent, No. 346,190, dated July 27, 1886, for a valve gear for steam pumps. This last patent, not having been described in the foregoing decisions, special reference will be hereafter made to it.

The allegations of complainant's bill, filed in the court below, fully set forth all of the rights claimed by the complainant, under and by virtue of his said patent, including proper drawings and specifications, fully covering the patent, its purpose, its uses, the method of its use, as set forth in detail in the cases above cited, together with proper allegations of infringement by the defendants. The defendants answered with sufficient denials, and setting out the usual defenses of lack of patentability; lack of infringement; that the patentee was not the original inventor of said improvements; that the patentee was not original application for letters patent, the specifications were changed, and the patent was unlawfully issued, with changed and altered specifications, embracing new matter; that the invention and all of its substantial parts had been previously described and illustrated in letters patent, giving a list of them; that the reissued patent was issued without legal authority, for reasons therein stated; alleging noninfringement of the patent in suit; alleging intervening rights, and that the public generally, and appellants specifically, acquired, during the interim between the issue of the original patent and the reissue thereof, rested rights; that the bill of complaint is without equity; and by stipulation the answer was amended, asserting the claims of the defendants with reference to patent No. 346,190, dated July 27, 1886, granted to L. W. Bryan. Proper replication was filed by complainants.

The assignment of errors is in substance, and to the effect, that the decree of the court below is erroneous, in that it should have dismissed complainant's bill for want of equity, contending: (1) That the court should have held that the claims of complainant's patent herein are invalid: (a) Because the claims are destitute of patentable novelty; (b) because the reissued patent was granted without legal authority; (c) because as to these defendants the claims are inoperative, because defendants, during the interim between the granting of the original patent and the reissued patent, acquired vested intervening rights to manufacture and sell the motors alleged to infringe, and particularly motors having coil springs fastened on the cylinder heads. (2) That the court should have found no infringement.

Considering complainant's patent as minutely described and fully discussed in the above citations, we proceed to consider defendants' first contention-- that there was no patentable novelty. An examination of the record discloses that the Board of Appeals in the Patent Office concluded that Coffield, the patentee of complainant's patent, was the first to use, in connection with the elements of the mechanism, springs which complete the stroke of the valve, and that, taken as a whole, the device was new, useful, and patentable. The record discloses the fact that the original application of patentee was denied in the Patent Office, and that his patent was secured only after an appeal had been taken to the board; that thereafter his application for a reissue was denied in the Patent Office, and the Board of Appeals, whose membership differed from that of the first Board that considered the original patent, again considered his invention, and upon the last consideration it considered the prior art patents relied upon by those who were contesting patentee's right to the reissue, which are pointed out in its report and made a part of the record, with the distinguishing features of Coffield's device. The reissued patent was therefore an expression of the deliberate judgment of the Board of Appeals.

From the record it seems undisputed that the reissued patent of the complainant comprises a reciprocating water motor, with special features which adapt it for operating washing machines in domestic use. It appears that it is successful because of its simplicity and efficiency, and because it does not require the services of a skilled person to keep it in running order. The record shows this motor durable in construction, certain in action, and free from trouble. It further clearly appears that water ordinarily taken from the municipal waterworks system varies in pressure, and this motor, without any change in its construction, acts with equal efficiency under pressures of wide differences. This is accomplished by protecting the springs from the work of unseating the valves, the life of the springs is prolonged, and troubles due to breaking the springs are largely reduced. The work of unseating the valves is performed by means other than the springs, the valve stems striking the cylinder heads. These valve stems, being rigid bodies, work equally well under all conditions of high or low pressure, and are made amply strong to resist indefinitely the different forces to which they may be subjected. This, in substance, appears as the claim of the inventor, from the description of the motor and its mode of operation. The record discloses that this device possesses such change from the prior art as to receive the approval of the Board of Appeals, and it is entitled to the presumption of invention, which attaches to a patent.

Complainant is entitled to all that its patent fairly covers, even though its complete capacity was not recited in the specifications, and was even unknown to the inventor prior to the patent issuing. The law regards a change as a novelty and the acceptance and utility of the change is further evidence, as a demonstration, of novelty. Diamond Rubber Co. of New York v. Consolidated Rubber Tire Co., 220 U.S. 428, 31 Sup.Ct. 444, 55 L.Ed. 527. This record is replete with evidence of the acceptance and utility of this device, as well as prolonged litigation over it, tending to show and measure the existence of public demand for its use. We have no difficulty in determining from the evidence in the case that complainant's device is and was an advance in the art, that the patent represents a type of water motor that can be made to work successfully if the valve stems and the springs are so arranged that the former will do the heavy work of unseating; the latter impart the final movement and complete the work of reseating. In this field Coffield was a pioneer and the claims of his patent are patentable.

Considering defendant's contention, that the reissued patent was issued without legal authority, they first assert that the original patent was void on the ground that the claim in the original patent was predicated on new matter injected into the specifications by the amendment of May 1, 1905, which new matter was unsupported by any oath, and it is further contended that the original patent being void, the reissue thereof is void also. It is claimed by the defendants that the amended application and model filed by Coffield, embodied material additional to, or at variance from, the original. We find as a matter of fact that nothing new was comprised therein. There was no departure by this amendment from the invention as originally disclosed in the application filed. The facts apparent from the face of the Patent Office record of the original patent disclose no irregularity that renders the...