Winters v. DENT HARDWARE CO.

• Decision Date: 11 August 1927
• Docket Number: No. 3999.,3999.
• Citation: 20 F.2d 671
• Parties: WINTERS et al. v. DENT HARDWARE CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania

20 F.2d 671 (1927)

WINTERS et al. v. DENT HARDWARE CO.

No. 3999.

District Court, E. D. Pennsylvania.

August 11, 1927.

Cyrus N. Anderson, of Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiffs.

E. Hayward Fairbanks, of Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant.

DICKINSON, District Judge.

This cause concerns letters patent No. 1,385,102, for an improved refrigerator door latch lever. The conclusion reached is that the claims of the patent (other than 5 and 6) should be so read as to restrict the right granted to the plaintiff's special construction, which the defendant does not infringe, and that claims 5 and 6 are invalid.

Discussion.

The patent was held to be valid and infringed by decree of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Winters v. Sanitary Refrigerator Co. (no opinion filed). The parties were really the same as those before us, but the defendant here was not made formally a party to that proceeding. In consequence, the ruling is not asked to be deemed conclusive. An appeal from that ruling is pending. Were the question ruled in that case the question here raised, we would unhesitatingly follow it because we are in full accord with the views expressed by Judge Geiger upon the feature of the patent which he discussed.

We have, however, a wholly different question here raised. The inventive feature and practical value of the plaintiff's latch is that, when the door is "slammed to," it will be automatically locked, whether the latch lever proper is in the position of pointing toward the door side or jamb side of the refrigerator. This result is accomplished by having two cams, respectively so placed as that one operates in one case and the other in the other. There is, as Judge Geiger has expressed it, not "the slightest doubt about the perfect identity of plaintiff's and defendant's devices in a legal sense." This is because of the use of what may be called alternate or double cams in the construction of each device. If, however, this feature had already been appropriated by the prior art, then the only advance made by plaintiff's invention was in the special construction or position of his cam, and there would be no infringement, unless this special cam feature was copied. This the defendant has not done.

Upon the question of how much of the plaintiff's latch was an appropriation of the possessions of the prior art, Judge Geiger expresses no opinion. This question is now the only one. Cams to direct the latch to a locking position are "as old as the hills," as they followed closely upon the latch string. A real advance was made by the shifting of the latch lever from the jamb to the door. This feature differentiates many of the devices of the older art from those of the present. Another advance was made in what we have called the alternate (or, what is perhaps more accurately termed, the double) cam feature. These two features in combination permit the door to be closed and locked by a slamming action whether the latch lever be in a vertical or horizontal position. If this combination did not originate with the plaintiff's patentee, the plaintiff and defendant each have the like right to a mere special construction.

This takes us to the claims of the patent and back to the prior art. Claims 5 and 6 are subject of special discussion, and will be here ignored. The scheme of the improvement outlined in the patent application is that of an advance upon the plan of the Condit latch. The main features are (1) a transference of the latch lever to the door; and (2) to assure the operation of the device, whether the latch lever be in a vertical or horizontal position when the door is slammed. The described structure is of a device which meets both these objectives, as does likewise the patented device of the defendant. Patentability and infringement are thus both present, unless these features be old. Defendant confidently asserts them to be features of "the oldest constructions in this art," and specifically as present in the Kiel, Dent, and Charles patents.

It may...