Freeman v. Altvater

• Decision Date: 03 November 1942
• Docket Number: No. 12241.,12241.
• Citation: 130 F.2d 763
• Parties: FREEMAN et al. v. ALTVATER et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

130 F.2d 763 (1942)

FREEMAN et al. v. ALTVATER et al.

No. 12241.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

September 28, 1942.

Rehearing Denied November 3, 1942.

Marston Allen, of Cincinnati, Ohio (Allen & Allen, of Cincinnati, Ohio, and Bruninga & Sutherland, of St. Louis, Mo., on the petition for rehearing and brief on motion to revise decree and stay mandate), for appellants.

Edmund C. Rogers, of St. Louis, Mo. (Lawrence C. Kingsland and Kingsland, Rogers & Ezell, all of St. Louis, Mo., on the brief in opposition to motion to revise decree and stay mandate), for appellees.

Before GARDNER, WOODROUGH, and JOHNSEN, Circuit Judges.

GARDNER, Circuit Judge.

In our opinion in this case, we directed that the decree appealed from be affirmed. Freeman et al. v. Altvater et al., 129 F.2d 494. Plaintiffs filed petition for rehearing, which was denied, whereupon they filed motion to modify the opinion and revise the decree on appeal which generally affirmed the decree of the trial court. On presentation of this motion we set aside our order denying petition for rehearing as having been improvidently entered and reinstated plaintiffs' petition for rehearing. The matter is now before us both on petition for rehearing and motion to modify the opinion and revise our decree on appeal.

In its decree the trial court adjudged (1) that defendants' accused devices did not infringe plaintiffs' reissue patent No. 20,202; (2) that the original contract of January 1, 1929, between the parties terminated December 8, 1936, and that no new contract had since been entered into; (3) that Freeman was evicted from the monopoly protected by his patent by the decision in Premier Machine Company v. Freeman, 1 Cir., 84 F.2d 425, on June 3, 1936; that the original Freeman patent No. 1,681,033 became invalid November 11, 1932, and that the reissue patents Nos. 20,202 and 20,203 were invalid; (4) that the bill of complaint and the supplemental bill be dismissed; (5) that the issues on the counterclaim are found in favor of the defendants. Being of the view that the trial court properly dismissed plaintiffs' bill of complaint and supplemental bill because defendants were no longer licensees and that their accused devices did not infringe plaintiffs' reissue patent No. 20,202, we affirmed the decree without considering the question of the validity of plaintiffs' patents. We also put aside as unnecessary for decision the contention of defendants that plaintiffs had entered into license and lease agreements by which they attempted to monopolize and limit competition in unpatented dies and machines, and we thought it unnecessary to consider the question of the validity of plaintiffs' patent, as we concluded that the trial court's finding of non-infringement could not be set aside as clearly erroneous. On their motion to modify the opinion and revise our decree on appeal, appellants have brought sharply to our attention the effect of a general affirmance of the decree appealed from, pointing out that the general affirmance is broader than our opinion warrants.

The trial court having found no contract of license between the parties and having found no infringement, the other issues became moot and there was no longer a justiciable controversy between the parties. L. McBrine Co., Ltd., v. Silverman, 9 Cir., 121 F.2d 181; Richard Irvin & Co., Inc. v. Westinghouse Air Brake Co., 2 Cir., 121 F.2d 429; Electrical Fittings Corp. v. Thomas & Betts Co., et al. 307 U.S. 241, 59 S.Ct. 860, 83 L.Ed. 1263. When we sustained the decree on the ground of lack of infringement, we pretermitted consideration of the claim of invalidity of plaintiffs' patents, but we did not order a modification of the decree appealed from, and both parties now assert that the decree of the lower court, if permitted to stand, will be res judicata between the parties on that issue. In L. McBrine Co., Ltd., v. Silverman, supra, the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit determined that none of the claims in suit were infringed. The judgment below was bottomed on infringement. The court, among other things, said 121 F.2d 182:

"We affirm the dismissals; not, however, on the ground assigned by the trial court, but on the ground that no infringement was shown. * * * No infringement being shown, we have no occasion to consider whether the evidence...