Dewey & Almy Chemical Co. v. American Anode

Decision Date13 July 1943
Docket NumberNo. 8292.,8292.
Citation137 F.2d 68
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit
PartiesDEWEY & ALMY CHEMICAL CO. v. AMERICAN ANODE, Inc.

George P. Dike, of Boston, Mass. (Morris, Steel, Nichols & Arsht, of Wilmington, Del., George P. Dike and George P. Towle, Jr., both of Boston, Mass., and Hugh M. Morris and Alexander Nichols, both of Wilmington, Del., on the brief) for plaintiff-appellant.

Harrison F. Lyman, of Boston, Mass. (Edgar H. Kent, of Boston, Mass., and Arthur G. Connolly, of Wilmington, Del., on the brief), for appellee.

Before BIGGS, MAGRUDER, and GOODRICH, Circuit Judges.

Writ of Certiorari Denied October 11, 1943. See 64 S.Ct. 70, 88 L.Ed. ___.

MAGRUDER, Circuit Judge.

Dewey & Almy Chemical Company appeals from an order for summary judgment which dismissed its complaint for a declaratory judgment against American Anode, Inc. The ground of dismissal was that there did not appear to be any "actual controversy" between the parties within the meaning of the Declaratory Judgment Act, 48 Stat. 955, 28 U.S.C.A. § 400.

According to the allegations of the complaint, defendant is the owner of United States Patents Nos. 1,825,736 to Klein & Szegvari and No. 1,996,051 to Twiss. These are process patents relating to the manufacture of form-shaped rubber goods by coating molds with a coagulent and then dipping them in a latex compound. Plaintiff has practised commercially three methods of producing rubber goods from latex by this so-called "coagulent-dip" process. One of these methods is now in commercial use. Plaintiff intends to resume commercial use of the other two methods when materials are available. The complaint recites: "Defendant has at various times, to the plaintiff or otherwise, asserted such a scope for the claims of its said Letters Patent that said processes practiced by plaintiff would infringe said claims, if valid, and defendant has led plaintiff to believe that it will sue plaintiff if it does not abandon said processes, or take a license under said Letters Patent, but defendant has failed to bring suit against plaintiff for infringement thereof. Wherefore there is a conflict of asserted rights between the parties, and an actual controversy exists." The prayer is for a judgment declaring the two patents to be invalid, or if valid, that the patents are not infringed by the plaintiff in practising its coagulent-dip processes described in the complaint.

Defendant moved under Rule 56(b) and (c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, 28 U.S.C.A. following section 723c, for a summary judgment of dismissal. In support of the motion, defendant submitted an affidavit by Raymond W. Albright, its president. Albright deposed that prior to this suit defendant had not charged plaintiff with infringement of the said patents nor threatened plaintiff with any suit for infringement; that prior to reading the complaint in this case defendant had no knowledge or reason to know that plaintiff was using or had used any coagulent-dip process commercially; that back in 1937 plaintiff opened negotiations with defendant for a license under the patents; that during these negotiations plaintiff informed defendant that plaintiff was not using any coagulent-dip process but "that they might like a license under our patents so that they could, if they chose, use a coagulent dip process for the manufacture of other types of goods for which such a process might be better suited"; that negotiations broke down through inability of the parties to agree upon license terms; that Albright wrote to plaintiff in November, 1937, that if at a later date "you find you wish to work under our process and patents, we would be glad to discuss the matter with you again"; that thereafter he heard nothing further from plaintiff on the subject, "and was greatly surprised when this complaint was filed."

In opposition to the motion for summary judgment plaintiff filed two affidavits by Theodore C. Browne, head of plaintiff's patent department. These affidavits did not directly controvert any of the statements of fact contained in the Albright affidavit. Browne deposed as to the reasons why the terms of license offered to plaintiff in 1937 were inacceptable to the latter. He further deposed that in January, 1940, Anode filed suit against the Lee-Tex Rubber Products Company of Chicago, Illinois, charging infringement of the same patents by the use of a coagulent-dip process;1 that in that suit Mr. Albright testified that after extended negotiations the Lee-Tex Company declined to take a license "and as a result of that" the suit against Lee-Tex was brought. Further, Browne deposed that he attended the trial of that suit; that in a conversation which took place in the corridor Mr. Albright "said in effect that it was a disappointment to him that the manufacturers did not recognize the great contribution which Anode had made to the rubber dipping art and now that the manufacturers were ganging up on them they had to put a stop to it."

The sole question before us is whether on the facts disclosed the court below had jurisdiction to issue a declaratory judgment as prayed in the complaint.

Prior to the passage of the Declaratory Judgment Act, the patentee was in a position to make oppressive use of his asserted monopoly while carefully avoiding the test of litigation with an alleged infringer. See Borchard, Declaratory Judgments (2d ed.) p. 803; Treemond Co. v. Schering Corp., 3 Cir., 1941, 122 F.2d 702, 703, 704. Further, the patentee might, in his own good time, sue the alleged infringer for an accounting, after large damages on account of a possible infringement had accrued. The alleged infringer could not take the initiative in litigation to challenge the validity or scope of the patent.

In providing the remedy of a declaratory judgment it was the Congressional intent "to avoid accrual of avoidable damages to one not certain of his rights and to afford him an early adjudication without waiting until his adversary should see fit to begin suit, after damage had accrued." E. Edelmann & Co. v. Triple-A Specialty Co., 7 Cir., 1937, 88 F.2d 852, 854. This court has emphasized that the Act should have a liberal interpretation, bearing in mind its remedial character and the legislative purpose. Alfred Hofmann, Inc., v. Knitting Machines Corp., 3 Cir., 1941, 123 F.2d 458, 460; Treemond Co. v. Schering Corp., supra, 122 F.2d at page 703.

The statutory provision limiting declaratory judgments to "cases of actual controversy" is no more than a recognition that the federal judicial power extends only to "cases" or "controversies" in the constitutional sense. Ætna Life Insurance Co. v. Haworth, 1937, 300 U.S. 227, 239, 240, 57 S.Ct. 461, 464, 81 L.Ed. 617, 108 A. L.R. 1000. This constitutional requirement, as applied to declaratory judgments, is not interpreted in any narrow or technical sense. Ætna Life Insurance Co. v. Haworth, supra; Maryland Casualty Co. v. Pacific Coal & Oil Co., 1941, 312 U.S. 270, 61 S.Ct. 510, 85 L.Ed. 826. There must be a concrete case touching the legal relations of parties having adverse legal interests, and susceptible "of an immediate and definitive determination of the legal rights of the parties in an adversary proceeding upon the facts alleged." The distinction is between a case "appropriate for judicial determination" on the one hand, and a "difference or dispute of a hypothetical or abstract character" on the other. Ætna Life Insurance Co. v. Haworth, supra, 300 U.S. at pages 240, 241, 57...

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