Westinghouse Electric & Mfg. Co. v. Wagner Electric Mfg. Co.

• Decision Date: 13 February 1904
• Docket Number: 4,657.
• Citation: 129 F. 604
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri
• Parties: WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC & MFG. CO. v. WAGNER ELECTRIC MFG. CO.

129 F. 604

WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC & MFG. CO. v. WAGNER ELECTRIC MFG. CO.

No. 4,657.

United States Circuit Court, E.D. Missouri, Eastern Division.

February 13, 1904

Kerr Page & Cooper, Bakewell & Cornwall, and B. F. Babbitt, for complainant.

Fowler & Bryson, for defendant.

ADAMS District Judge.

This is a suit based on the fourth claim of letters patent of the United States No. 366,362, granted to complainant's assignor July 12, 1887, for new and useful improvements in electric converters. The relief asked for is an injunction restraining the defendant from infringing the claim and an accounting. The patent has been in litigation before. On May 10, 1900, complainant instituted a suit on the same patent in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York against the Union Carbide Company (112 F. 417), which will hereafter be referred to as the 'Carbide Case.' The defendant in this case, being the manufacturer of the device claimed to constitute an infringement in the Carbide Case, appeared, and conducted the defense, and it is conceded in bound by the decree therein rendered. Before final submission of that case complainant dismissed as to claims 1, 2, 3, and 5, submitting claim 4 only to the final judgment of the court. The defenses to that action were want of patentable invention and noninfringement. The trial court decided that claim 4 of the patent was valid, and that defendant had infringed the claim by manufacturing the device then before the court, and this decree was affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. 117 F. 495 55 C.C.A. 230. The patent action is based on the same claim (4), and no controversy, is now made except on the issue of infringement. Defendant contends that this present device is so different from the device involved in the Carbide Case that the judgment in that case is not res adjudicata of the present issue of infringement, and that in fact the defendant's device does not infringe claim 4. The only question for decision, therefore, is whether the defendant's device constitutes an infringement of claim 4 of the Patent in suit. The invention of the a patent relates accordingly to the specification,' to the construction of a class of apparatus employed for transforming alternating or intermittent electric currents of any required character into currents different therefrom in certain characteristics,' and the object of the invention, according to the specification, is 'to provide a simple and efficient converter which will not become overheated when employed for a long time in transforming currents of high electro-motive force, and which will be thoroughly ventilated. ' The claim in question is as follows:

'(4) The combination, substantially as described, of an electric converter constructed with open spaces in its core, an inclosing case, and a nonconducting fluid or gas in said case adapted to circulate through said spaces and about the converter.'

Complainant claims that the converter, now commonly called a 'transformer,' manufactured by the defendant, infringes claim 4 in three particulars: First, because there is an open space between the coils themselves; second, because there is a rectangular opening inside of the core, through which the coils pass; and, third, because there are open spaces between the core and the coils. The question for determination is whether either of these three spaces or openings constitute 'open spaces in its core' within the true meaning of claim 4 of the patent.

I have reached the conclusion that the defendant's transformer does not, by reason of either one or all of the above-mentioned features, have 'open spaces in its core,' within the true meaning of the patent in suit, for the following reasons:

First, The fact that there is a space between the two coils when inserted in the core is not an infringement of claim 4 for the most obvious reason that claim 4 calls for no such space, and for the quite equally obvious reason that claim 1, which is not now in controversy, does contain that element. From these two facts it is altogether probable that the patentee did not himself understand or intend that claim 4 should be construed as containing the element. After a careful reading of the opinion of the Court of Appeals in the Carbide Case, 117 F. 495, 55 C.C.A. 230 (which is conceded by counsel to be binding upon the defendant in this case), I find no reason for reading the element of 'open space between the coils' into claim 4.

Second. The drawings and description of complainant's patent, as well as the model shown in evidence and used in argument, show a device in which the coils completely fill the opening in the surrounding core, and in which parallel open spaces a few inches apart appear in the substance of the core, extending throughout its body in such way as to permit the oil in which the transformer is submerged to freely circulate about the surrounding core and into the interior. A longitudinal section of this device is shown in Fig. 2 of the drawings of the patent, which is as follows:

(Image Omitted)

The numerous parallel open spaces so shown in the drawings and model, and any other open spaces, whether parallel or not cutting through the body of the surrounding core and extending into the interior opening containing the coils, are, in my opinion, the 'open spaces in its core' contemplated by claim 4/ The purpose of these open spaces as disclosed by the patent and the evidence of experts, is to permit the oil to so bathe the heat-producing surfaces of the transformer, and to so circulate throughout the parts of the transformer, as to preserve the insulation of the coils, and radiate the heat generated by the transformer's action. The use of oil or paraphine in a tank inclosing the transformer for the purposes just specified has been long known to the art, and is recognized by at least two patents prior in date to complainant's patent. Accordingly, the invention has for its main purpose only the physical means of effectually securing this circulation of oil. It deals with the core itself, and divides it up into groups of plates, each group separate from the other in such way as to make numerous parallel open spaces in the core leading from its outer surface on all its four sides into the interior opening made for the introduction of the coils. This interior opening, called in the patent 'two rectangular openings, e1 and e2, through which the wires pass,' is not, in my opinion, 'an open space in its core,' within the meaning of claim 4. I adopt the views of Prof. Nipher with respect to this rectangular opening. He says: 'The core is not the core of a transformer or converter until these rectangular openings are made through it. ' He says further: 'These openings give character to the core. ' 'It is not a core until they exist there. ' 'The core is in fact given such a form that it surrounds the coil in a certain sense, and the space so surrounded by the core might...