Olympic Fastening Systems Inc. v. Textron Inc‪.‬

This patent case is concerned with the art of riveting, especially as it is practiced in the aircraft industry. In the manufacture of airplanes it is necessary to join sheets of metal together by riveting under circumstances where the riveter cannot see or reach behind or inside the sheets being joined. For this reason "blind" fasteners were developed in which a tubular rivet consisting of a fixed head and a hollow sleeve has inserted within its core a stem which is enlarged or serrated on its exposed end so that a pulling type rivet gun can activate it. The lower end of the stem, which extends beyond the inner sheet of metal, contains a tapered joining portion and a "blind head" which has a larger diameter than the stem or the sleeve of the tubular rivet. The blind head of the stem "upsets" or expands the lower end of the sleeve into a "tail" when the pulling force of the rivet gun forces it upward into the sleeve. This presses the inner sheet upward, closing any space that might have existed between it and the outer sheet. During this operation the exposed head of the rivet is held tightly against the outer sheet by the rivet gun. Thus, the sheets of metal are clamped or "clinched" together. The Cherry patent No. 2,183,543, not in issue here, was a pioneer in blind riveting, but the joinder it achieved was "non-structural" because the connecting sleeve between the riveted parts remained hollow.