98 F.2d 682 | 2d Cir. | 1938
These appeals come up from decrees in two separate suits. The first was brought by the Automatic Signal Corp’n against the Horni Signal Corp’n upon a patent to Nelson, which was reissued after his death on application of the plaintiff, as assignee. It was concerned with the automatic control of signal lights at the meeting of two roads, to regulate the passage of motor cars. Thirty-five of the sixty-three claims are in' suit, of which the judge held twelve valid and infringed, and twenty-three invalid. Both sides appeal from this decree. The second suit is by the Horni Signal Mfg. Corp’n against the Automatic Signal Corp’n upon claims 1, 2 and 5 of a patent to Ram, which was for the same general purpose. These claims the judge held not infringed, without passing on their validity. . The Engineering & Research Corp’n holds the title to Nelson’s patent, and the Automatic Signal Corp’n is its exclusive licensee; it will be more convenient, however, to speak of the Automatic company as though it were the owner.
Nelson’s invention was to be used at the meeting of a highway and a cross-road where the traffic lights always showed “high-way green” and “cross-road red”, unless a cross-road car approached: that is, at a crossing where the highway normally had the right of way. Should a -crossroad car appear, these lights must change so as to give it the right of way, and the same must hold true of the next cross-road car, and so on in succession. On the other
Nelson’s disclosure was never used ; so far as appears it was quite valueless until sublimated into the vastly more complicated train of mechanism installed by both parties to the suit. It is not necessary to attempt any description of this, and it would be even more difficult than the disclosure of the patent. It did fulfill the same objects as Nelson; that is, it gave the right of way to a car approaching on the cross-road, and to a succession of such
Ram’s patent appeared ten days after Nelson filed his application, but it had been nearly four years in the Office, and was admittedly prior art. It did not assume that either of the roads had normally the right of way, and it was therefore necessary for a car on either road to actuate a trip in order to get its light, unless an earlier car on that road had already set it. Thus there were trips on both the highway and the cross-road. Moreover, on each there was a “check-in” trip and a “check-out” trip. When the fore wheels of a "cross-road” car touched the "check-in” trip, it mechanically completed a circuit which changed the light to “cross-road green”, if it had stood at “highway green”. (Ram in fact disclosed an indicator which changed through 90°, but we shall describe his invention in terms of lights, since these are inter changeable.) As the hind wheels of the car hit the trip, the mechanical means was withdrawn, and although the circuit was left closed, it was in such condition that the making of a second circuit would open it. When the fore wheels touched the “check-out'’ trip, they closed this second circuit- which opened the first circuit. This did not of itself change “cross-road green” to “highway green”; what it did do was to make it possible for a car coming upon the highway to give itself “highway green”, when it reached its own “check-in” trip. If nothing more had been provided, a succession of cross-road cars would have kept the “cross-road green” indefinitely, because although the circuit closed by each would be opened as it passed its “check-out” trip, the next car would close an adjacent circuit, unless before its arrival at the “check-in” trip and after its predecessor’s passage over the “check-out” trip, a highway car had chanced to pass the highway “check-in” trip. To avoid this and give to the highway its own right of way, Ram provided for a momentary interruption of the lighting circuit by the fourth car regardless of the fact that a fifth cross-road car, just behind it, had already passed the cross-road “check-in” trip. This interruption served to give the right of way to the highway, provided a car had at that time passed the highway “check-in”, and was waiting to pass the crossing. If no such car was present, four more cross-road cars could pass the crossing before the highway got the right of way. If the fifth car was
The second suit in on the Ram patent itself. All three of the claims in suit are verbally too limited to cover the plaintiff’s installation; claim one says that the signals shall be so controlled that “no more that a predetermined number of vehicles may pass” before cars approaching on the other street get the right of way. Claim two is in substance the same, and so is claim five, except that it is confined to elec
Decree in the first suit reversed; bill dismissed for non-infringement.
Decree in the second suit affirmed.
Neither side will have costs, and the printing disbursements will be divided.