Weatherhead Company v. Drillmaster Supply Company
| Decision Date | 08 December 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. 11308.,11308. |
| Citation | 107 USPQ 184,227 F.2d 98 |
| Parties | The WEATHERHEAD COMPANY and Paul D. Wurzburger, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. DRILLMASTER SUPPLY COMPANY and James E. Rutledge and Kenneth C. Horn, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
F. O. Richey, Cleveland, Ohio, George N. Hibben, Chicago, Ill., H. F. McNenny, D. W. Farrington, Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiffs-appellants, Davis, Lindsey, Hibben & Noyes, Chicago, Ill., Richey, Watts, Edgerton & McNenny, Cleveland, Ohio, of counsel.
No appearances for defendants-appellees.
Before FINNEGAN, SWAIM and SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judges.
The plaintiffs-appellants are the assignees of two patents: one, No. 2,139,413, issued December 6, 1938, on a joint for pipe connections, and the other, No. 2,171,217, issued August 29, 1939, on a metal packing ring for use with, as a part of, such a joint for pipe connections as was described in the first patent. Plaintiffs brought this action for infringement of both patents. The trial court held that Patent No. 2,139,413 () was valid and infringed, and that Patent No. 2,171,217 () was invalid for lack of invention, in that it did not show invention beyond patent 413 which was first issued: that the particular ring disclosed and claimed in patent 217 was within the skill and would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art.
Both patents were applied for by and issued to the same man, Hans Kreidel, and the applications therefor were copending for several months in the patent office.
Before Kreidel's basic invention, covered by patent 413, the problem of how to join pipes that were to withstand high pressures had not been satisfactorily solved. The most common methods involved cutting threads in the pipe which, of course, reduced the thickness of the pipe where they were cut and thereby lessened the ability of the pipe to carry loads under high pressures. If threads are cut in a pipe that is to carry high pressures, the extra thickness of the rest of the pipe is wasted. Kreidel was the first to develop a joining device that would not weaken the pipe and yet would hold the joint together under high pressures.
Kreidel's invention as disclosed in his first patent, 413, holds the pipe in place by means of a metal packing ring which fits around the pipe, and has a forward cutting edge which is forced down until it cuts into the pipe raising a small burr and holding the pipe securely so that it cannot slip backwards. The cutting does not weaken the pipe because the cutting edge remains pressed firmly in the grooves cut in the pipe, taking the place of the metal of the pipe which has been displaced.
The joint has three parts: (1) the tubular connecting piece with a funnel-shaped mouth flaring outwardly into which the pipe is placed, (2) the packing ring which holds the pipe against the tubular connecting piece by cutting into it, and (3) a nut which screws onto the connecting piece and presses the packing ring so that its forward edge passes inside the flared end of the connecting piece and is then squeezed down into the pipe as the nut pushes it farther forward. As the nut is tightened, the packing ring is pushed farther into the flared end of the connecting piece where it becomes smaller and smaller until it cuts into the pipe and thereby holds it firmly against the shoulder of the connecting piece.
The metal of which the packing ring should be made is not specified in patent 413, which says only that the ring should be "* * * of material sufficiently hard to shear cut said tube pipe and being sufficiently ductile to be radially contracted to an internal diameter substantially less than the external diameter of said tube * * *."
Appellants' patent 217 describes an "improved" metal packing ring for use with the type of pipe joint disclosed in patent 413. Patent 217 describes a packing ring identical in structure and operation to that disclosed in patent 413. The only claims in 217 not in 413 are that the ring should be made of low carbon steel which has been surface hardened by means of a potassium cyanide bath. This will provide a hardened surface portion to provide cutting edges for cutting into the pipe and a relatively soft core that can be deformed enough to bring the hard cutting edge in contact with the pipe. Patent 217 also claims the idea of coating certain surfaces of the ring with cadmium so that it will slide more easily when the ring is being forced into the funnel end of the connecting piece.
The appellants argue that the packing ring claimed in 217 is different in form from that claimed in 413. They insist that 413 claims only a ring with a plurality of cutting edges and that 217 claims only a single cutting edge. An examination of the patents shows that they both claim a ring with either a single or plurality of cutting edges. Claim 8 of patent 413 claims, "* * * a sleeve having an annular part with an edge sufficiently hard to cut into the tube * * *." (Our emphasis.) This language by itself clearly claims a single edged ring, and when illustrated by figures 1, 2 and 3 of the drawings filed with the application, there can be no doubt. The first claim in patent 217 claims a "* * * packing ring for use with tube couplings of a type described * * *." In the description in patent 217 this paragraph appears:
"In the drawing, two embodiments of the invention are shown and in each a packing ring is provided with only one cutting edge for purposes of illustration."
Nothing more need be said on this subject. The only difference in claim in the second application is that a specific metal is named which has the general qualities that the first application specified (i. e., "* * * of material sufficiently hard to shear said tube and being sufficiently ductile to be radially contracted * * *." — taken from Claim 11 of patent 413).
The trial court held that 217 does not disclose invention over 413, and that the...
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