Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/305/47/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 16:25:57+00:00

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Justia › US Law › US Case Law › US Supreme Court › Volume 305 › Schriber-Schroth Co. v. Cleveland Trust Co.
1. Where it is improbable, notwithstanding the doubtful validity of a patent, that conflict of decision respecting its validity will arise in different circuits, because of the concentration in one circuit of the industry in which the patented devices are used, there is reason for granting certiorari to review a decision in that circuit sustaining it. P. 305 U. S. 50.
2. A patent does not extend beyond the invention described and explained as the statute requires; it cannot be enlarged by claims in the patent not supported by the description. P. 305 U. S. 57.
3. The application for a patent cannot be broadened by amendment so as to embrace an invention not described in the application as filed, at least when adverse rights have intervened. Powers-Kennedy Co. v. Concrete Co., 282 U. S. 175; Permutit Co. v. Graver Corporation, 284 U. S. 52. Id.
4. Amendments to Patent No. 1,815,733, to Gulick, for a combination in the structure of pistons of internal combustion engines for automobiles, designed to prevent undue thermal expansion of the pistons when in operation, were unlawfully added. P. 305 U. S. 51.
the piston walls," and that the arrangement provided "a particularly strong support for the bosses." The webs, as shown by the drawings, conformed to these specifications, and neither drawings nor specifications gave dimensions showing thickness or other proportions of the webs which might suggest a flexible structure.
(1) That, after a similar piston with the element of flexible webs had come into commercial use and another had been described in an application for patent, the patentee could not add that element to his application by amendment. P. 305 U. S. 55.
(2) Amendments to that end could not be supported as being but clarifications of the application as filed. P. 305 U. S. 57.
The contention that lateral flexibility was implied in the original description as an inherent property of the metal composing the web, and was disclosed by the drawings, is rejected.
Inherent flexibility of the web in cooperation with the slit skirt cannot be depended upon to produce the desired effect in rendering the skirt yieldable in response to cylinder wall pressure. That depends upon design of the web, with correct proportioning of the different parts as to location and thickness to produce lateral flexibility. Inherent rigidity, made more effective by design of the webs, would correspondingly curtail the desired effect.
6. Decisions of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the Court of Customs and Patent Appeals sustaining the Gulick amendments are accorded weight, but are not controlling in this Court when the validity of the amendments is involved in an infringement case. P. 305 U. S. 59.
7. As flexible webs are neither described in the specifications nor mentioned in the claims of the patent for a like combination to Maynard, No. 1,655,968, they can be imported into them only by reference to the drawings or by inference from the inherent flexibility of the structure, which, as in the case of Gulick, are insufficient to accomplish the result. P. 305 U. S. 60.
Certiorari, 304 U.S. 587, to review the reversal of a decree holding certain patent claims invalid in suits for infringement. Other patents, held invalid by the District Court but not passed upon by the court below, were not involved in this review.
U.S. 175, and Permutit Co. v. Graver Corporation, 284 U. S. 52, as inconsistent with the result of interference proceedings in which Gulick's amendments were sustained, Long v. Gulick, 17 F.2d 686; Hartog v. Long, 47 F.2d 369. The master also held that the Maynard patent No. 1,655,968, applied for January 3, 1921, and allowed January 10, 1928, was invalid for want of invention and for failure to describe and claim the alleged invention. He held invalid upon various grounds the other patents, which are not presently involved.
The District Court adopted the findings and conclusions of the master and gave its decree for petitioners. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed, as to the Gulick and Maynard patents only, holding that they were valid and infringed. 92 F.2d 330.** As the court regarded the claims which it sustained as basic, and thought that a full recovery could be had by respondent under them, it did not pass upon the validity of the other patents or decide other questions involved in the appeal.
Petition for certiorari raising the question, among others, whether the Circuit Court of Appeals had erred in holding patentable a combination including one element not described in the original application for the Gulick patent and later added to it by amendment, and not described at all in the Maynard patent, was at first denied, there being no conflict of decision. 303 U.S. 639. We later granted certiorari, 304 U.S. 587, on a petition for rehearing showing that, notwithstanding the doubtful validity of the patents, litigation elsewhere with a resulting conflict of decision was improbable because of the concentration of the automobile industry in the Sixth Circuit. Cf. Paramount Publix Corp. v. American Tri-Ergon Corp., 294 U. S. 464; Altoona Publix Theaters, Inc. v. American Tri-Ergon Corp., 294 U. S. 477.
It is important for the proper functioning of the piston in a gas engine that it should fit the explosion chamber closely, so as to conserve power, prevent the passage of lubricating oil around the piston into the chamber, and insure the smooth and noiseless movement of the piston within the cylinder. In designing gas engines for automobiles and other purposes requiring a high speed piston reciprocation with the accompanying development of high temperature in the explosion chamber, it is desirable to avoid thermal expansion of the close fitting piston, which will result in loss of power and possible injury to the mechanism through increased friction, which may cause the piston to seize or stick. The danger of undue expansion is increased when, as is advantageous in automobile engines, the piston is of aluminum, which has a higher coefficient of expansion than the iron or steel chamber within which the piston moves.
to admit of the free movement of the edges toward each other.
"when the longitudinal split is used, as shown, the web structure has sufficient lateral flexibility to permit the split to close more or less under the action of the expansion forces incident to the heating of the piston."
"A piston, open at one end, for an engine cylinder comprising a skirt and head separated from the skirt wall around its entire periphery, said skirt being longitudinally split to render the skirt wall yieldable on every diameter in response to cylinder wall pressure, wrist pin bosses, and means rigidly connecting said bosses to the head and yieldingly connecting said bosses to the skirt whereby said skirt is yieldable in response to cylinder wall pressure."
Reference to a combination including, with other elements, web connections, "whereby said piston skirt, is rendered yieldable during operation in response to cylinder wall pressure," appears in Claim 18.
webs supporting wrist pin bearings with bosses which do not come directly in contact with the walls of the skirt, was plainly foreshadowed by the prior art as a practicable means of minimizing the flow of heat from head to skirt and of securing lateral flexibility in the skirt. The expired Spillman and Mooers patent No. 1,092,870, of April 14, 1914, pooled with the patents in suit, showed a piston with head separated by an air space from the skirt, the two being connected by a web separated from the skirt except at the point of integral connection with it at the lower end of the cylinder, and providing bearings for a wrist pin connection with bosses not in direct contact with the wall of the skirt.
"But to combine insulation of head from skirt, retraction of the bosses from the skirt periphery, connection of such bosses to the skirt with webs laterally flexible and yet so carried from the head as to support the load upon the wrist pin with sufficient strength and rigidity, and to utilize the mechanical force of the cylinder wall upon the skirt and the thermal expansion of the bosses so as to compensate evenly and fully for head expansion and to secure a balanced flexibility of the skirt with no bending concentration at any point therein, discloses, we think, a meritorious concept beyond the reach of those skilled in the art."
We can find no support in the opinion for the contention of respondent that the Circuit Court of Appeals did not consider the flexible web an essential element in Gulick's invention. Its enumeration, among other named elements, of the connection of head and skirt by webs laterally flexible as embodying a meritorious concept must be taken to indicate that the court regarded the flexible webs as a part of the invention, the more so since it indicates that lateral flexibility of the webs is the only feature mentioned not within the prior art or within the expected skill of the art. It rejected, on the authority of Long v. Gulick, supra, and Hartog v. Long, supra, the contention made below and pressed here that Gulick's application as filed did not disclose "webs laterally flexible" and the resultant "balanced flexibility of the skirt," and that those features were added to specifications and claims after the use of the Long piston and after they had appeared in Hartog.
"It will be seen that, in addition to providing a piston with a split skirt, the above-described construction also provides an extremely rigid connection between the piston pin bosses and the skirt of the piston, which construction may be used either with or without the split skirt and separated head. The arrangement of the supporting flanges 17 between the ends of the piston pin bosses and the connection of those flanges with the piston skirt provide a particularly strong support for the bosses."
The webs as shown by the drawings conform to the specifications of an "extremely rigid connection" between piston pin bosses and skirt, and "a particularly strong support for the bosses." They form chords subtending the are of the circle of the skirt, with flanges depending from the head to the bosses at right angles to the webs, and the skirt as shown is provided with interior corrugations and with an in-turned flange at the bottom, all familiar devices for securing rigidity of structure. Neither drawings nor specifications give dimensions showing thickness or other proportions which might suggest a flexible structure.
"to rigidly support the piston pin bosses of a piston from the piston wall against mechanical load thrust from the connecting rod without interfering with the yielding characteristics of the skirt in response to cylinder wall pressure."
"The arrangement of the supporting flanges 17 between the ends of the piston pin bosses and the connections of those flanges with both the piston guide portion and the head provide a particularly strong construction, and at the same time, when the longitudinal split is used, as shown, the web structure has sufficient lateral flexibility to permit the split to close more or less under the action of the expansion forces incident to the heating of the piston."
"a written description of [his invention] . . . and of the manner and process of making, constructing . . . and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art . . . to . . . construct . . . and use the same, and, in case of a machine, he shall explain the principle thereof, and the best mode in which he has contemplated applying that principle, so as to distinguish it from other inventions. . . . "
"to inform the public during the life of the patent of the limits of the monopoly asserted, so that it may be known which features may be safely used or manufactured without a license and which may not."
Permutit Co. v. Graver Corporation, 284 U. S. 52, 284 U. S. 60. It follows that the patent monopoly does not extend beyond the invention described and explained as the statute requires, Permutit Co. v. Graver Corporation, supra at 284 U. S. 57; that it cannot be enlarged by claims in the patent not supported by the description, Snow v. Lake Shore & M.S. Ry. Co., 121 U. S. 617; cf. Smith v. Snow, 294 U. S. 1, and that the application for a patent cannot be broadened by amendment so as to embrace an invention not described in the application as filed, at least when adverse rights of the public have intervened. Chicago & N.W. Ry. Co. v. Sayles, 97 U. S. 554, 97 U. S. 563-564; Powers-Kennedy Contracting Corp. v. Concrete Mixing & Conveying Co., 282 U. S. 175, 282 U. S. 185-186; cf. Webster Electric Co. v. Splitedorf Electrical Co., 264 U. S. 463; Permutit Co. v. Graver Corporation, supra; Crown Cork & Seal Co. v. Gutmann Co., 304 U. S. 159.
flexibility, a description which was made more specific, but not altered, by the amendments. The argument suggests that it was but the skill of the art, and not invention, to substitute a flexible for a rigid means of connecting head and skirt in a known combination of piston head separated from a slitted skirt by an air space and connected by webs. But, in any case, we think it falls short of establishing that the Gulick amendments were not new matter beyond the scope of the device described in the application as filed.
rigid, that was not the invention which Gulick described by his references to an extremely rigid web.
Gulick also failed to explain the principle of his machine so as to distinguish it from the prior art. Webs having the inherent properties both of rigidity and flexibility were familiar elements in piston structure. The court below, after pointing out that the slots of the Franquist skirt rendered it capable of limited construction, found a distinguishing feature of Gulick's piston to be a web relatively flexible laterally, so as to accommodate the constriction of skirt to thermal expansion, the combination operating to secure a "balanced flexibility" of the skirt. But that principle -- facilitating skirt constriction, rather than obstructing it -- was first explained, and its embodiment in the flexible-webbed device was first claimed, by the amendments to the application.
the inherent flexibility of the webs to supply the feature of lateral flexibility omitted from the Gulick description they ignored the principle recognized in Permutit Co. v. Graver Corporation, supra, and Powers-Kennedy Contracting Corp. v. Concrete Mixing & Conveying Co., supra. So far as they relied on the drawings to supply the omission they disregarded the fact shown both by inspection and by the evidence presented here that the drawings do no more to point to Gulick's invention than does the fact of inherent flexibility. We conclude that respondent can take no benefit from the flexible web element added by amendment to the Gulick application.
"Maynard . . . embodies the Gulick combination of skirt insulation, skirt flexibility by means of vertical slotting cooperating with longitudinal slotting, and flexible webs in the region of the wrist pin bosses. He also follows Jardine's simplified design to permit economical manufacture and Jardine's boss relief,"
"It is clear that Maynard, while not departing from the teaching of Gulick in basic combination of elements, discloses a piston lighter and more economical of manufacture than Gulick and one more rugged and durable than Jardine."
of the Gulick amendments, are insufficient to accomplish that result. We conclude that the court below erred in giving any effect to so much of the Gulick patent as by amendment describes or claims the flexible webs, and in treating any of the specifications or claims in Gulick and Maynard as referring to such webs. We assume that it sustained Claim 1 of the Gulick patent, which makes no mention of web flexibility, only by reading into it that element, which the court regarded as an essential part of the invention.
* Together with No. 4, Aberdeen Motor Supply Co. v. Cleveland Trust Co. et al., and No. 5, F. E. Rowe Sales Co. v. Cleveland Trust Co. et al., also on writs of certiorari to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
** The decree sustained Gulick's claims numbered 1, 11, 12, 13, 15, 18, 30 and 33, and Maynard's claims numbered 1, 6 and 8.

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