Wine Ry. Appliance Co. v. Baltimore & OR Co.
| Decision Date | 10 November 1933 |
| Docket Number | No. 2102.,2102. |
| Citation | 5 F. Supp. 219 |
| Parties | WINE RY. APPLIANCE CO. v. BALTIMORE & O. R. CO. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Maryland |
Gilbert P. Ritter and Henry K. Muir, both of Washington, D. C., for plaintiff.
Edwin S. Clarkson, of Washington, D. C., for defendant.
This suit involves eleven patents, which may be briefly and collectively described as relating to door-locking devices for drop-door cars of varying design, including doors used upon flat-bottom cars which are disposed in horizontal position when closed; doors used upon hopper-bottom cars which are inclined from a horizontal position when closed and are adapted to swing downward from the inclined position when opened; and doors used upon the drop-bottom gondola type of car which swing transversely of the car and are disposed in a horizontal position when closed. All of these doors swing open by gravity, and thus discharge the lading.
These eleven patents and their respective claims that are in suit, are as follows: (1) Kadel and Pilcher patent No. 1268725, issued June 4, 1918, claims 2 and 11 only; (2) Kadel patent No. 1434953, issued November 7, 1922, claim 2 only; (3) Wine reissue No. 15792 of March 11, 1923, claims 6, 7, and 10 only; (4) Wine patent No. 1431499, issued October 10, 1922, claim 1 only; (5) Kadel patent No. 1738057, issued December 3, 1929, claims 7, 15, 16, 22, and 27 only; (6) Kadel patent No. 1743144, issued January 14, 1930, claims 8, 9, 15, and 18 only; (7) Kadel patent No. 1737927, issued December 3, 1929, claim 6 only; (8) Kadel patent No. 1733736, issued October 29, 1929, claim 8 only; (9) Wine patent No. 1460009, issued June 26, 1923, all claims, ten in number; (10) Wine patent No. 1455694, issued May 15, 1923, claim 11 only; (11) and Wine patent No. 1486210, issued March 11, 1924, claims 1 and 4 only.
The various devices of the defendant are properly divisible into three classes, which, with the particular patents they are alleged to infringe, are as follows: First, the Enterprise device (so-called because manufactured by the Enterprise Railway Equipment Company) which is alleged to infringe patents (1) and (2); second, the "XLT" devices (a designation coined by defendant for convenience) which are alleged to infringe patents (1), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), and (8); and third, the drop-door gondola car device which is alleged to infringe patents (9), (10), and (11).
The plaintiff company is engaged in the manufacture of various railway appliances, including those involved in the patents in suit. To the plaintiff's charge that the defendant, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, has manufactured and is using, or has used, car door-locking devices of various types which infringe one or more of these patents, the defendant asserts the usual defenses of (1) noninfringement; and (2) invalidity of the plaintiff patents as evidenced by (a) prior public use or (b) prior patents, or both. It is axiomatic that the burden of proving infringement is upon the party alleging it, namely, the plaintiff, and that, likewise, the burden of proving invalidity is upon the party alleging it, namely, the defendant. The various patents will be considered, in the order above named, in their respective relations to the three different types of alleged infringing devices.
Kadel and Pilcher Patent No. 1268725 and Kadel Patent No. 1434953 in Relation to Defendant's Enterprise and "XLT" Devices.
Of the Kadel and Pilcher patent, only claims 2 and 11 are in suit. These claims are as follows:
It is not maintained by plaintiff that a single element embodied in either of these claims is new or that, by itself, it is the proper subject of a patent, but merely that, by the combination of old elements, a new device, producing new results, is accomplished. Summarized very briefly, the basic idea created by the combination as set forth in claim 2 rests in the gravity hooks and the manner of their engaging the doors of the car. The same is true with respect to claim 11 with the addition of a further means for closing the door, in the form of a lever and a fixed attachment in connection with which the lever operates. Plaintiff asserts that this is a pioneer patent because prior to this Kadel invention, all known car door-locking devices which really had for their object the securely locking of the door rather than merely fastening the door as an auxiliary or aid to some other device for keeping it firmly and tightly closed, were dependent upon a winding mechanism. that is to say, upon a device whereby with the aid of levers, cogs, and chains, the doors were opened and closed, and, when closed, were primarily dependent upon such mechanism for proper security. It is true the Kadel and Pilcher patent in the specifications provides that any convenient arrangement for raising the doors into closed position may be used, but, as further stated, the customary winding arrangement is preferably omitted and the doors are lifted by hand, or, as was demonstrated by witnesses in the course of the trial, if the doors are of the so-called saw-tooth hopper type, that is, doors which are inclined from a horizontal position when closed and are adapted to swing downward from the inclined position when opened, they may be operated by pressure of the foot.
We find that the weight of the credible evidence supports plaintiff in this contention. Although defendant, in support of its contention that this patent is invalid because of prior public use, has introduced extensive and uncontradicted testimony to the effect that hooks or latches pivoted upon the sides of cars and adapted to engage by gravity the car doors when the latter were drawn into closed position, were in use as early as 1907 on the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie Railroad, and on the Big Four Railroad as early as 1912; and although such devices of varying types bore prima facie close resemblance to the Kadel and Pilcher device, nevertheless there is no evidence in the case which proves that the pivoted hooks or latches in these earlier devices did more, or were intended to do more, than serve as an auxiliary or substitute for the winding mechanism when it became out of order, as it frequently did. This is evident from the fact that in none of these earlier devices did the pivoted hook or latch engage the door itself, or any substantial stiffening beam or member attached to the door, but merely locked into a keeper or strap of such construction as poorly adapted to carry continuously the strain of the heavy loads, which obviously would rest upon it if the doors were not supported in closed position by some other device such as a winding mechanism, which we find was always employed in these earlier devices; and which, furthermore, rendered it impossible or virtually so, for the operator of the doors to close them by hand or foot manipulation, because prevented by various parts of this winding mechanism from assuming a position with relation to the car door which would enable him to close it in such manner. Also, it appears from the earlier devices of this sort upon which defendant primarily relies to show prior public use, that pivoted hooks or latches were equipped with cams or dogs underneath as well as above them, the primary purpose of which was "to set" the hooks or latches when the doors were about to be opened, thus necessitating the "unsetting" by hand of these cams or dogs when the doors were about to be closed again, the effect of which was thereby, of course, to do away, for all intents and purposes, with the theory of gravity-latching or locking which is one of the basic principles embodied in the Kadel and Pilcher patent.
Similarly, we find in none of the prior art patents which have been cited, any conception of the basic idea embodied in the Kadel and Pilcher patent. For these reasons, we believe that this patent is valid, but we have still to determine whether it is infringed by either the Enterprise or the "XLT" devices of the defendant. Contrary to the Enterprise device, all of the "XLT" devices embody, instead of pivoted hooks engaging the door or a fixed part thereof, the reverse condition, namely, fixed hooks into which engage movable latches. The same Enterprise device was involved in Wine Railway Appliance Co. v. Enterprise Railway Equipment Co., 25 F. (2d) 236, and was there held by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit to have infringed Kadel patent No. 1434953, also involved in this suit. As already explained, the Enterprise device plaintiff claims also infringes Kadel and Pilcher patent No. 1268725.
The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in the above case, found claim 2 of Kadel patent No. 1434953 to be valid, and also to have been infringed by a device which, as we have just stated, was identical with the Enterprise device of defendant in the present suit. Claim 2 reads as follows: ...
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Wine Ry. Appliance Co. v. Baltimore & OR Co.
...with these findings, the complainant has appealed. The facts are fully set forth in the opinion of the District Judge, reported in 5 F. Supp. 219, and need not be repeated We agree with the court below as to the validity of the Kadel and Pilcher patent No. 1,268,725. It is true that all of ......