Opinion
No. 4074.
September 5, 1930.
Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the District of New Jersey; J.L. Bodine, Judge.
Patent infringement suit by the General Electric Company against Charles Eisler and another. From a decree dismissing the bill, plaintiff appeals.
Affirmed.
Memorandum opinion of Bodine, District Judge:
The Circuit Court of Appeals held in General Electric Co. v. Eisler, 20 F.2d 33, that the Mitchell White patent, No. 1,423,957, for a stem-making machine in the incandescent lamp art, was invalid for lack of invention, since the machine did precisely what had been done by hand.
The same court held in General Electric Co. v. Eisler, 26 F.2d 12, that the Fagan Frech patent, No. 1,220,836, for inserting wires in glass buttons of electric light bulbs to form a frame to support the filament was invalid for lack of invention over the prior art. In that case the glass-fusing means was a means for blowing a flame against a portion of the edge of the button so that there was no danger of injuring the wires previously inserted in the button. The Circuit Court took the view that the machine operated in the same manner employed by workmen by hand.
The first of the patents in suit in the present case is the Van Keuren patent, No. 1,326,121, which is for a "pull-down fork" applicable to the sealing-in of long-necked bulbs. The other three patents relate to the sealing-in of tipless lamps. They are the Mitchell White patents, Nos. 1,453,594 and 1,453,595, and the Marshall patent, No. 1,475,192.
In the tipped lamp art, vacuum was created through the exhaust tube in the top of the bulb. In the tipless lamps, instead of using a vent at the top the vent is through an exhaust tube extending down through the stem.
The sealing-in machines are old. The only thing complained of in the record is the form of the head. Those sold by Eisler individually are known as the Eisler No. 1 head, and those sold by the corporation, which he caused to be formed, are known as the No. 2 head.
In the lamp manufacture the first step is to set up the wires and the filament on a cane. The next step is to place this within the bulb, and the third step is to create the vacuum and to seal the filament within the bulb. Mitchell White in their apparatus patent made a rearrangement or relocation of air vents and air blast passages to accomplish their purpose. As the witness Dyer testified, the problem which they met and solved was no more than steering a car around a pile of bricks in the street. All that they were doing was to take the air out of the bulb, not at the top, but at the bottom, and the machine had to be rearranged so that this was accomplished. If it was more than steering a car around a pile of bricks, it was no more than trying and fitting the part of a perfectly well-known machine to accomplish a perfectly well-known result. The blast used in the sealing-in operation must not be diverted by the exhaust. That was the problem and Mitchell White solved it by avoiding an interference between the air blast and the air vent. As Justice Bradley said in Atlantic Works v. Brady, 107 U.S. 192, 199, 2 S. Ct. 225, 231, 27 L. Ed. 438, "The design of the patent laws is to reward those who make some substantial discovery or invention, which adds to our knowledge and makes a step in advance in the useful arts."
The Mitchell White method patent, No. 1,453,595, adds nothing new. The Marshall patent is for an improvement upon the structure of the first Mitchell White patent.
Claim 2 of the Marshall patent, as follows, is as broad as any: "In an apparatus for sealing into a bulb a mount having an exhaust tube extending longitudinally therefrom, the combination of a support for said bulb and means for supporting said mount within said bulb comprising a hollow shaft for receiving a portion of said exhaust tube and allowing unobstructed communication therethrough from said exhaust tube to the atmosphere, a passage external of said shaft and having an outlet below the said mount and means for directing air into said passage."
It is sufficient perhaps to say that a hollow shaft for receiving the broken portion of the exhaust tube is not worthy of discussion as an invention. Something would have to happen to every broken exhaust tube. In the handmaking art the operator undoubtedly let these broken exhaust tubes fall upon the floor or into a receptacle. In the machine art, the addition of a hollow shaft for receiving the broken portion of an exhaust tube is nothing more than any one would devise.
The Van Keuren patent No. 1,326,121 relates to a forked weight to straddle the neck of the bulb for elongating it. Van Keuren stretched the glass more uniformly than was done in the old hand art because he hinged the end of the fork to the sealing-in head. Counsel for the defendant calls it a "piffling expedient." The court so views it.
There is nothing in any of the devices, machines, or methods, referred to in the patents in suit, that seem to rise to the realm of invention. The art is crowded, devices are many, and novelty seems to characterize none.
The bill will be dismissed, with costs.
Merrell E. Clark, of New York City, for appellant.
Richard Eyre, of New York City, for appellees.
Before BUFFINGTON, WOOLLEY, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a decree of the District Court dismissing the bill filed in the above-stated cause on the ground that claims 1, 3, 5, 8, and 14 of the Mitchell White patent, No. 1,453,594, claim No. 7 of the Mitchell White patent, No. 1,453,595, and claims 2 and 6 of the Marshall patent, No. 1,475,192, are invalid because of the lack of invention. We agree with the conclusions of the learned District Judge, and affirm the decree on his opinion.
Affirmed.