Harries v. Air King Products Co‪.‬

Judge Galstons full and considered opinion is reported and states the positions of both sides, the evidence, and the law. We need add nothing to it by way of prelude to our own discussion; and we shall address ourselves at once to the questions in dispute, presupposing an acquaintance with it. The only issues which we deem it important to consider are validity and infringement, because, although the defendant has also raised the question of laches, and of the general inequity of the plaintiffs failure to give earlier notice of their intention to sue, it is too clear for debate that both these positions are untenable. The question of validity, as is almost always the case, is enmeshed with that of infringement, and it will be most convenient to begin with it. Obviously before deciding whether the claims are valid, we must decide what they mean; i.e. what was the invention. The plaintiffs say that it consisted of a stream of electrons in which the ratio of length to cross-section is great, combined with an anode, placed at a "critical distance" from the accelerating grid, or "screen." They insist that the absolute length of the stream is not an element of the invention; and that, on the contrary, this is important only when the purpose is to "deflect" the beam, as, for example, when "multiplying frequencies." We hold that the original specifications were for long streams, regardless of the ratio of length to cross-section, because the ratio was a later and unauthorized interpolation into the application as originally filed. This is in accord with Judge Galstons Finding 15 A(1)(a), as to the first and third patents, that the "histories and the patents themselves show that the patents are for tubes having long, jet-type, electron streams"; and with his Finding 20 D(1), as to the second patent, that it "is for a tube having a long jey-type electron stream." Next, we hold that we need not decide whether Judge Galstons ruling was wrong that the claims in suit, so limited, were valid; and we shall, arguendo, assume that they are. Last, we hold that Judge Galstons finding that the defendants tubes do not infringe the claims, when so interpreted, was not "clearly erroneous." In what follows we shall endeavor to demonstrate in the foregoing order that these three propositions are true.