Citations
- 68 F. Supp. 89
Full opinion text
LEAHY, District Judge.
This is a straight infringement suit, involving claim 15 of Miller No. 1,799,056, issued March 31, 1931. The defenses were invalidity and non-infringement. ' The decision in this case is that Miller ’056 is invalid; but if valid, infringed by defendant’s accused device.
1. Plaintiffs are Duncan Meter Corporation, an Illinois corporation, exclusive licensee under the patent, which deals with parking meters, in the parking meter field, and Samuel Lee Miller, resident of California, owner of the patent, against M. H. Rhodes, Inc., a Delaware corporation.
2. Claim 15 of the patent is the claim in suit and is charged to be infringed by defendant’s parking meter, PX. physical No. 1, admittedly manufactured and sold by defendant within six years prior to the date of suit.
3. The litigated patent, which incidentally does not mention parking meters in either the specifications or claims, deals with a coin-controlled apparatus for permitting a person to prepay for the use of radio receiving sets, washing machines, a telephone station for local and long distance calls, an electric refrigerator, an exercising machine, and allied apparatus, etc., for greater or lesser periods of time, depending upon the denomination of the coin employed. The patentee discloses a clockworks provided with a winding spring and an indicator; a multiple denominational coin-controlled device through which the clockworks is set and its spring is wound in accordance with the denomination of the particular coin employed; and a switch operated by the clockworks is set and which is opened when the clockworks returns to zero position. The disclosed coin-controlled device per se comprises a shaft with an actuating handle and carrying a coin carrier having a plurality of coin receiving grooves adapted to receive coins of different denominations through corresponding coin slots provided in the casing; a spring-returned pawl pivoted or the coin carrier and extending across the grooves; and a plurality of fixed cams of different lengths, each respectively registering with a different groove in the coin carrier and arranged to respectively deflect the coins of different denominations upon operation of the actuating handle to cause the pawl to engage a ratchet wheel carried by the arbor of the clockworks. Lengths of the respective cams determine the distances through which the clockworks is set by the coins of varying denominations. The apparatus shown in Miller is an accumulative one and, for any given value of coin, the clockworks is always set to the same extent, i. e., the apparatus is adapted to receive a series of coins in succession for progressively moving the indicating hand of the clockworks always through the same additional angle for the same additional period of time for any given value of coin.
4. Defendant’s accused device, PX. physical No. 1, is a multiple (1^ and 5