Weller Mfg. Co. v. Wen Products

• Decision Date: 19 January 1954
• Docket Number: No. 52 C 714.,52 C 714.
• Citation: 121 F. Supp. 198
• Parties: WELLER MFG. CO. v. WEN PRODUCTS, Inc. et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

121 F. Supp. 198

WELLER MFG. CO. v. WEN PRODUCTS, Inc. et al.

No. 52 C 714.

United States District Court, N. D. Illinois, E. D.

January 19, 1954.

John Rex Allen, Chicago, Ill. (Charles R. Fenwick, Thomas B. Van Poole, Mason, Fenwick & Lawrence, Washington, D. C., Schroeder, Merriam, Hofgren & Brady, Chicago, Ill., of counsel), for plaintiff.

Charles B. Cannon, Daniel V. O'Keeffe, Wallace & Cannon, Chicago, Ill., Robert E. Burke, Burke, Craven & Crane, Chicago, Ill., for defendant.

BARNES, Chief Judge.

This is an action by the plaintiff, Weller Manufacturing Company, a limited partnership consisting of the general partners Carl E. Weller, Emily I. Weller, Everett C. Weller and Robert E. Miller, having a place of business at Easton, Pennsylvania, against the defendants, Wen Products, Incorporated, an Illinois corporation having a place of business in Chicago, Illinois, and Nicholas T. Anton, president of the defendant corporation, charging infringement of reissue Patent No. 23,619 granted February 10, 1953 on "Electrical Heating Apparatus" in the name of Carl E. Weller, as patentee, on a reissue application Serial No. 298,219 filed July 10, 1952, for the reissue of original Patent No. 2,405,866, issued August 13, 1946, on an application Serial No. 402,372, filed July 14, 1941. The original complaint in this suit was filed on April 1, 1952, jointly by the present plaintiff, Weller Manufacturing Company, and a second plaintiff, Weller Electrical Corporation, a Pennsylvania corporation (no longer a party to the suit), and charged infringement by both of the defendants of all four claims of the original Weller Patent No. 2,405,866.

As above stated, on February 10, 1953, the reissue Patent No. 23,619 was granted. On February 17, 1953, the plaintiffs filed an amended and supplemental complaint, in which they substituted the reissue Patent No. 23,619 for the original Patent No. 2,405,866. The defendants thereupon filed an answer to the amended and supplemental complaint and a counter-claim requesting a declaratory judgment as to the reissue Patent No. 23,619, and the plaintiffs, in due course, filed their reply to the defendants' counter-claim. Thereafter, in reply to interrogatories, the plaintiffs stated that they would rely at the trial upon all of the eleven claims of the reissue Patent No. 23,619 as having been infringed by both of the defendants.

The trial commenced on Thursday, October 15, 1953, and the taking of testimony was concluded on Tuesday, October 27, 1953. Thereafter, briefs were filed and final arguments were heard on December 21, 1953.

Carl E. Weller is the inventor. The plaintiff, Weller Manufacturing Company, is the owner of the original Weller patent and the reissue patent. It is the manufacturer of Weller soldering guns made and sold under the original Weller patent and the reissue patent. It and its predecessors have manufactured soldering guns under these patents since early 1942.

The defendant, Wen Products, Incorporated, is the manufacturer of Wen soldering guns, which are alleged to infringe the reissue patent in suit. It began making the accused soldering guns in October, 1951. The defendant was given notice of the infringement of the patent by letter shortly after the first sale of the accused device. The defendant corporation was organized for the sole purpose of manufacturing the accused soldering gun. Nicholas T. Anton is president of the corporate defendant and was the moving force in its formation. He owns and controls all of the stock in the corporation and determines its policy.

The testimony shows that Carl E. Weller was, from 1932 to 1942, primarily engaged in the repairing of radio receiving sets. During this time he assisted in the operation of a small coil and transformer winding shop. As a radio repairman he often visited customer's homes and examined radio receiving sets and, if possible, made the repairs there. A soldering tool was an essential in this work. In order to use a detection instrument, such as a meter, to determine whether a short circuit existed in the radio, it was necessary to unsolder parts to insert the meter in the circuit. If the meter showed no short circuit, the repairman would resolder the connection and repeat this procedure at other points. This often called for many soldering operations. The radio chassis contains a maze of wiring, and the soldering tool has to be inserted between the wires carefully so as not to burn the insulation. The only electric soldering tool used prior to 1941 is exemplified by the so-called "American Beauty" soldering iron. This soldering iron is provided with a core of high electrical resistance wire extending out from the handle, and this core is placed directly across the 120 volt supply that is available in the normal commercial outlet socket. The heat that is produced in this core is conducted and radiated through the supporting member for the core and through an enlarged barrel that surrounds it into a larger copper soldering tip or peen which is in the form of a rod, the rear portion of which projects back into the heating element, that is, the core of high electrical resistance wire. This large peen stores up the heat which it collects by radiation and conduction from the heating element, so that a large supply of heat is available in the peen to flow into the work and the solder when it is placed in contact with the work. There are several disadvantages to this type of soldering iron. The principal disadvantage is the time required for this tool to heat up and cool down. In the usual case, approximately four to five minutes is required for this tool to heat up to a temperature at which it will melt solder. That is because the high resistance heating element has to supply heat to a large mass of copper, and, in order to bring the mass of copper to the 500 to 700 degree temperature necessary to perform a soldering job takes not less than four to five minutes. After the job has been finished and the switch is turned off a period of approximately eight to ten minutes is required before this very hot element can cool down to a safe storing temperature. Furthermore, this tool, lying around in a heated condition, is a serious fire hazard.

The testimony discloses that Carl E. Weller, the inventor of the patented device, in his work as a radio repairman. observed the disadvantages of the earlier soldering iron and resolved to try to eliminate them. His efforts along this line led to the development of the soldering tool covered by the patent in suit.

Weller realized that, to develop the ultimate speed in the soldering tool, the peen should be heated by putting a current through that portion of the device. This was just the opposite of the technique employed in the prior soldering iron in which the current was fed through the high resistance heating element and no current passed through the soldering peen proper, which merely collected the heat from the heating element.

A number of other problems and difficulties had to be overcome to utilize a self heated soldering peen which would be quick heating. Significant among these was the problem of selecting an appropriate small size for the soldering tip which could be heated up very rapidly but which would supply the large quantities of heat necessary to keep solder melted. Weller discovered that high resistance materials could not be used in the peen since they were such poor conductors of heat that the heat present in the tip could not be withdrawn fast enough.

Coming to a realization that a material which was by its nature an extremely good conductor of heat was essential for the peen of the proposed soldering device, Weller explored the possibilities of using copper in the tip. The idea of using copper in a soldering tip in which heat was to be generated was directly contrary to typical thinking of the times in regard to the use of copper in electrical circuits. Copper is the best electrical conductor of all readily available materials. Consequently, copper was used in an electrical circuit when it was desired to keep the conductor cool while it was transmitting current. When heating is desired, the normal material to turn to is a high electrical resistance material. To heat up the soldering tip which is of copper, and, therefore, a good conductor, requires a very high current. Since the soldering gun had to be adapted for use in the home, as well as the work shop, the source of power that could be used would have to be the 120-volt supply which is found in the conventional home. Since transformers cannot withstand temperatures of 450 or 500 degrees, which are required to melt solder, some provision had to be made to prevent the rapid flow of heat back from the self-heated soldering tip because the conductor which would supply the heat to the copper tip would be copper.

Weller's efforts to overcome these problems in using copper material as the self-heating soldering tip resulted in the device disclosed in the reissued patent in suit. The parts of the soldering gun disclosed in the patent are mounted in a pistol-shaped housing, which surrounds all the parts (except the tip) and is provided with a handle portion at the end, from which projects a cord to go to the usual outlet socket. In the central portion of the pistol-shaped housing is a transformer, which is an electrical device consisting of an iron core having two sets of wires wound in the form of turns about it. To one of them, which is known as the primary core of the transformer, power is supplied. The other is known as the secondary core of the transformer. Through it power is drawn from the transformer. The primary core of the transformer is connected with a switch, which is projected from the front of the handle. The switch turns on the supply of electricity, so that whenever the index finger of the operator is pulled, the current will flow in the circuit. The current of 120 volts and one-half...