opinion: WINTERS & CRAMPTON MFG. CO. v. GRAND RAPIDS BRASS CO. GRAND RAPIDS BRASS CO. v. WINTERS & CRAMPTON MFG. CO.
  Nos. 6107, 6108.
  Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
  Jan. 17, 1933.
  F. E. Liveranee, Jr., of Grand Rapids, Mich., for -Winters & Crampton Mfg. Co.
  Wm. C. Rice, of Grand Rapids, Mich. (C. W. Rice, of Grand Rapids, Mich., on the brief), for Grand Rapids Brass Co-.
  Before MOORMAN, HICKS, and SIMONS, Circuit Judges.
  MOORMAN, Circuit Judge.
  The patents in suit are No. 1,648,249 for a hinge and No. 1,710,321 for a furniture fixture. Suit was brought for infringement of the hinge patent by Winters & Crampton Manufacturing Company. The defendant, the Grand Rapids Brass Company, defended on the ground of invalidity and noninfringe^inent and by counterclaim charged infringement of the patent for the furniture fixture. The court held that the hinge patent was invalid and that the patent for the furniture fixture was not infringed by the plaintiff’s device, dismissing both the bill and the counterclaim.
  The Winters patent covers a simple device designed especially for refrigerator and other heavy doors. It consists of a plate of metal to be attached to the jamb, a larger plate to be attached to the door, ears extending outwardly from the jamb plate between which ears provided on the flanges of the door plate will lie, and a pivoting point made by a pin passing through the two sets of ears. The plate member attached to the door is extended inwardly at right angles over the pin a distance equal substantially to the width of the ears of that member.
  Invention is claimed upon the ground of the inclusion in the combination of the inwardly extended portion of the door plate. It is said that this extended portion hearing at its ends upon the ears of the jamb plate gives reinforcement and strength to the hinge combination. ' Conceding that that is true, we are unable to see where there is invention over the prior uses shown in the evidence. Epstein No. 657,267 combined substantially all the elements of the structure in a hinge for a match box; and many years prior to the patent application the Grand Rapids Company manufactured and sold the type of hinges introduced in evidence as Exhibits DD, G, and U., The door plate of these hinges turned inwardly at right angles for a distance substantially as great as the width of the ears on that member. It is true that these hinges were made of east metal and the Winters & Crampton plates are made of stamped metal, but there is nothing in the patent claims or specifications limiting the plate members to such metal. Besides, it would not be invention to substitute stamped metal members for cast members. Columbia Metal Box Co. v. Halper (C. C. A.) 220 F. 912; Chicago Pneumatic Tool Co. v. Keller, etc., Co. (C. C. A.) 293 F. 945; Sparks-Withington Co. v. A. E. Laboratories (C. C. A.) 3 F.(2d) 539. The most that can he said for the patented device is that it differs slightly in the extension of the terminal flange on the larger plate from similar extensions in the older devices. The degree of this difference in structure and results is too slight, in our opinion, to amount to invention. Smith v. Nichols, 21 Wall. 112, 119, 22 L. Ed. 566; Burt v. Evory, 133 U. S. 349, 358, 10 S. Ct. 394, 33 L. Ed. 647; Railroad Supply Co. v. Elyria Iron & Steel Co., 244 U. S. 285, 292, 37 S. Ct. 502, 61 L Ed. 1136.
  The patent relied upon in the counterclaim relates to fixtures adapted for mounting on articles of furniture, particularly such fixtures as hinges, locks, and latches, and its object is to provide a fixture so formed as not to mar or deface the surface of the article upon which it is mounted. It consists of a plate or member with a marginal edge extending outwardly at a slight angle from the portion through which the screws are driven a sufficient distance to prevent the scarring or marring of the base at the edge of the plate, and yet concealing from view the point where the p-late is brought in contact with the base by the fastening screws. The Winters & Crampton plate is not constructed with a tilted edge-but is designed to lie flat against the base. The- contention of the patentee is, however, that being made of stamped metal with a marginal edge extending outwardly from the seresw holes, it necessarily infringes because stamped sheet metal is resilient, and in fastening the plate to the base the pressure of the screws causes the marginal edges to tilt upwardly at a slight angle and thus effect infringement. Whatever may be the effect of the-application of screws to a stamped metal plate, the Winters & Crampton device does not infringe, for the single claim of the brass company’s patent is to be construed as calling for a plate having a “marginal edge portion extending outwardly * * * at * * * a slight acute angle” as constructed and not as foreed by the fastening screws. To construe it as covering the use of all stamped metal plates fastened to a base where the point of fastening is not upon the edge of the plate but is some distance therefrom would render the patent invalid. William patent, 952,059. We do not' determine whether it is valid within the limitation indicated. It is sufficient that as so limited the Winters device does not infringe.
  The decree is affirmed.
instruction: What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
  Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
  In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
  To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
  United States of America,
  Plaintiff, Appellant
  v
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendant, Appellee.
  International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
  Defendants, Cross-appellants
  v
  United States of America.
  Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
  of the Board
  Plaintiff, Appellants,
  v
  United States of America,
  Defendant, Appellee.
  This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
  Note that if an individual is listed by name, but their appearance in the case is as a government official, then they should be counted as a government rather than as a private person. For example, in the case "Billy Jones & Alfredo Ruiz v Joe Smith" where Smith is a state prisoner who brought a civil rights suit against two of the wardens in the prison (Jones & Ruiz), the following values should be coded: number of appellants that fall into the category "natural persons" =0 and number that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials" =2. A similar logic should be applied to businesses and associations. Officers of a company or association whose role in the case is as a representative of their company or association should be coded as being a business or association rather than as a natural person. However, employees of a business or a government who are suing their employer should be coded as natural persons. Likewise, employees who are charged with criminal conduct for action that was contrary to the company policies should be considered natural persons.
  If the title of a case listed a corporation by name and then listed the names of two individuals that the opinion indicated were top officers of the same corporation as the appellants, then the number of appellants should be coded as three and all three were coded as a business (with the identical detailed code). Similar logic should be applied when government officials or officers of an association were listed by name.
  Your specific task is to determine the total number of appellants in the case that fall into the category "private business and its executives". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the appellant is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.