496 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



[June 1, 1916. 



GOODRICH NEW QUARTERS AT BUFFALO. 



The Buffalo, New York, branch of The B. F. Goodrich Co., 

 Akron, Ohio, has been removed from 731 Main street, to 1050 

 Main street, in the building formerly occupied by the Ford Motor 

 Co. This change of location brings the Goodrich company more 

 nearly in the center of the automobile district and adds materially 

 to the office space, the general arrangement of offices being such 

 that trade can be handled to better advantage. The building is 

 particularly well heated, ventilated and lighted, thus benefiting 

 the comfort and efficiency of the employes, and a 2-ton elevator 

 is a material aid in rendering prompt service. The truck tire 

 department is exceptionally well equipped and the company is 

 able to handle a great many more trucks per day than was pos- 

 sible in the old location. 



SEIBERLING, STEVENS AND STATE PATENTS 



RUBBER ARMOR FOR AUTOMOBILE TIRES. 



An armor or cushion intended to be inserted betwe 



the 



automobile tire is shown in 

 It is claimed that this makes 



inner tube and the shoe of 

 the accompanying illustrati^ 

 the tire puncture proof, 

 non-collapsible, and that it 

 cannot blow out, and the 

 resilience is greater than 

 in tires not thus provided. 

 Besides this, being self- 

 ventilating, the tire is pre- 

 vented from heating. This 

 device consists of a rub- 

 ber cushion having a T- 

 shaped head which presses 

 upon the inner surface of 

 the tire; flanks or sides of the armor which prevent the tire 

 from collapsing, and serve as a protection for the tire and 

 tube; and air channels which it is claimed prevent the tube 

 and tire from heating. It is claimed that the T head pre- 

 vents the tire from flattening and that it will stay at the 

 same radius, making the running and steering of the car 

 easier; that the tire and tube will flatten less from the 

 weight, and that the inner tube need not be pumped 

 as hard as under the present system 

 [C. C. Wais, Oakley, Ohio.] 



ithout the "Armor." 



THE LUCK PNEUMATIC TIRE AND RIM. 



This is called the botherless tire, because the casing and inner 

 tube are protected against puncture by an e.xtra heavy rubber 

 tread and metal side flanges. The tire itself is built very much 

 like an ordinary pneumatic 

 " tire, with several plies of fric- 



tioned fabric, beads of the 

 usual clincher sort and an in- 

 ner tube. But the actual dif- 

 ference is apparent in the 

 accompanying illustration, and 

 the following explanation : 



The sides of the tire are pro- 

 tected by curved flanges, one 

 of which is shown at A, that 

 prevent blow-outs, punctures 

 and side strain. The body of 

 the tire B is made i:p of five 

 plies of frictioned fabric and 

 the space C provides for the 

 expansion of the side w-alls under compression. The inner tube 

 D is very similar to those used in the ordinary casing, but of a 

 special construction adapted to the peculiarities of the casing. 



The steel flanges are bolted to the felloe E by eight bolts F that 

 likewise hold the two flanges in place, the heavy, extra thick 

 tread G acting as a protector to the casing, preventing blowouts, 

 rim cuts, blisters and punctures. [Luck Tire Manufacturing Co., 

 Jonesville, Michigan.] 



AN opinion in favor of Frank A. Seiberling, president of the 

 Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., has been handed down by 

 Judge J. M. Killits late in April, in the suit against the Firestone 

 Tire & Rubber Co., charging infringement of the Seiberling, Ste- 

 vens and State tire-making machine patents Nos. 725,135, 726,561 

 and 941,962. The court held the Seiberling-Stevens patents valid 

 and that they were infringed by the Firestone company. The 

 suit was in the United States District Court for the Northern 

 District of Ohio, Eastern Division, at Cleveland, Ohio. 



In reviewing the patents. Judge Killitts found that their out- 

 standing and unique feature was the provision of methods for 

 taking straight fabric and so stretching and forming it that it 

 would take a cylindrical shape. 



Says the judge: None of the alleged anticipations was either 

 intended to produce nor had the capacity to produce one impor- 

 tant result which is one of the desiderata aimed at both by the 

 patentees of the grants in suit and the defendant, namely, to lay 

 down the fabric so that a structural rearrangement thereof 

 would be brought about to meet most efficiently the changing 

 direction of strain to which a tire is subjected in use, circumfer- 

 ential, transverse, and, to some extent at least, torsional. 



That these inventions so operate to stretch the fabric circum- 

 ferentially of the tire and also on the wings of the fabric, as it 

 is being laid down, in the direction of the radius of the circum- 

 ference, and that these results are highly desirable in an efficient 

 product, no one has very effectively disputed. . . . 



In view of the working of plaintiff's Exhibit "32" in the pres- 

 ence of the Court, and of the testimony of Hall that this exhibit 

 was made exactly after the detail of drawings in the Seiberling 

 and Stevens' patent in suit, and of the product of this exhibit 

 in practical use shown in evidence, and further, in view of the 

 state of the art at the time the Seiberling and Stevens' applica- 

 tion was made, we feel justified in concluding that their inven- 

 tion was not only the first practical invention to produce 

 mechanically automobile tires having the qualities of service de- 

 manded in the use thereof, which qualities were peculiarly the 

 fruit of mechanism effecting the rearrangement of cords to meet 

 the various directions of stress, above alluded to, but that it 

 employed therefor novel and patentable combinations of mechan- 

 ical elements ; that it was decidedly an advance step in the art 

 and so far occupying the field that it anticipated in a large meas- 

 ure both the State and Stevens' inventions. 



In fact, we regard the Seiberling and Stevens' mechanism so 

 nearly pioneer invention that the claims of the patent grant 

 therefor should receive liberal interpretation, and we are forced 

 to hold that the three sued upon, Nos. "1," "2" and "14," are valid. 



BRITAIN WILL CONTINUE TIRE IMPORTATIONS. 



On May 4 a further extension of British embargo lists 

 against importation of various articles was received by the 

 State Department at Washington, to the effect that the 

 British Board of Trade would restrict the importation of 

 many lines of manufactured goods, among them rubber tires 

 and tubes for motor cars and motorcycles. The reason 

 given for this was because of the shortage of tonnage and 

 the necessity of restricting imports to necessities, mainly 

 coal, grain, fuel, timber, munitions, etc. The effect of this 

 decree, which was to go into effect. May 12, upon British 

 industry would have been serious for numerous dealers who 

 have existed during the past year or two almost entirely by 

 the sale of American automobiles and tires, and it was stated 

 that if the prohibition was maintained for a year or more, 

 several of the big London agencies would be forced to close 

 down, causing an almost complete stagnation of highly 

 developed British branches maintained by several American 

 tire manufacturers. However, a later despatch states that 

 Walter Runciman, president of the Board of Trade, has 

 announced that motor car tires would not be included in the 

 lists of articles whose importation is prohibited. Arrange- 

 ments made with manufacturers of rubber goods in the 

 United States led to the decision that the proposal to include 

 tires in the embargo should be abandoned. 



