Wine Ry. Appliance Co. v. Enterprise Ry. Equipment Co.
| Decision Date | 06 April 1928 |
| Docket Number | No. 4782.,4782. |
| Citation | 25 F.2d 236 |
| Parties | WINE RY. APPLIANCE CO. v. ENTERPRISE RY. EQUIPMENT CO. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Gilbert P. Ritter, of Washington, D. C., and Chares W. Owen, of Toledo, Ohio (Owen & Owen, of Toledo, Ohio, and Ritter & Mechlin, of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellant.
Joseph Harris, of Chicago, Ill. (George I. Haight and Haight, Adcock, Haight & Harris, all of Chicago, Ill., on the brief), for appellee.
Before DENISON and MOORMAN, Circuit Judges, and ANDREW M. J. COCHRAN, District Judge.
The District Court found no infringement of either patent. We speak of appellant and appellee as plaintiff and defendant, respectively. In view of the accumulation of undecided cases, we state in this case only our conclusions, in form sufficient, it is thought, for the information of counsel.
Claim 19 of Cremean is not infringed. The principles of lever action do not permit us to find a fulcrum located on the weight.
We hesitate to think that claims 4, 5, 6, and 7 of Cremean can be valid and yet not be infringed, for defendant's departure in form is that mere reversal of parts which does not avoid even a narrow claim. The parts involved are functionally ratchet and pawl. The claims put the pawl on member A and the ratchet on member B; the defendant reverses them; and, excepting in the detail affected by the Kadel patent, does nothing else.
It was a common expedient to provide a door with a two-step latch. The member carrying the step feature, serving as the ratchet, might be either the door or the frame. Several applications of this had been made to the hinged tailboard reaching the bottom of a wagon box, intended for carrying dirt, coal, etc., which would fall out or could be pushed out when the tailboard or door swung down and open. These disclose in different forms the use of a pivoted and swinging hook as one of the engaging members. Sometimes the steps were provided by notches upon this hook. Sometimes the pivoted hook was attached to the wagon box and the door made step by step engagement. Sometimes suitably notched swinging hooks were attached to the door and made successive engagements with a fixed stop upon the wagon box. When we exclude from consideration the presence in the patented combination of an efficient fulcrum point provided on the hook (or at least not upon the swinging door), as we must because defendant does not use it, we find nothing in the Cremean patent but the application of this familiar device to a swinging door in the bottom of a railway freight car (Eng. — waggon) intended for carrying coal. Sizes and strains and weights were different. The acceptance by the public is impressive; but the case seems to use so clearly one of a purely analogous use, with merely mechanical adaptation, that we think these claims must be held invalid.
Claim 3 of Kadel is drawn rather broadly to a construction which, compared with Cremean specifically and the earlier art generally, is merely that reversal of parts which counsel for the plaintiff has convincingly argued does not amount to invention. It must be deemed invalid.
Kadel's claim 2 is confined to his specific construction, and, in view of the selection by defendant of this particular form out of the variety of forms open to it, we are not...
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