Cecil Adamson v. David Gilliland
| Decision Date | 08 January 1917 |
| Docket Number | No. 396,396 |
| Parties | CECIL F. ADAMSON, Petitioner, v. DAVID C. GILLILAND |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Percy B. Hills and Douglas W. Robert for petitioner.
Messrs. James A. Carr and T. Percy Carr for respondent.
This is a suit brought by the petitioner for the infringement of a patent for a vulcanizing device, 'including a vulcanizing member constructed to retain a combustible fluid upon and in contact with its upper surface, the lower surface of the vulcanizing member being adapted to be applied to the material to be vulcanized.' In other words, the upper side of the upper of two sheets of metal, between which, when heated, the material is to be vulcanized, is fashioned as a cup in which gasolene can be burned to heat it. The specific character of the machine has made of it a valuable success. The respondent admitted making and selling devices like the plaintiff's, but alleged and testified that he made them first. In a previous suit by the plaintiff, the plaintiff and the present defendant testified and District Judge Geiger gave the plaintiff a decree. In this case again the district judge in his turn saw the defendant and heard additional evidence, but, after criticizing it, said that his own judgment was that the new testimony would not have changed Judge Geiger's opinion, and, while professing to follow that opinion, according to the usage of district judges in such matters, evidently, to our mind, signified that he agreed with Judge Geiger, although in terms only following what had been done. The circuit court of appeals treated the action of the district judge as a mere yielding to the authority of the former decision, and reversed the decree upon the evidence as it stood in print.
We are unable to agree with the circuit court of appeals. There is no question that the plaintiff did not copy the defendant, that he put his invention into the market in November, 1911, and that the defendant did not put out his vulcanizer until February or March of the following year; but the defendant says that on August 7, 1911, twelve days before the plaintiff made the drawing that depicted his invention, he had had castings made that are substantially identical with the plaintiff's device and identical in particulars that the plaintiff's patent made material, but that the defendant declared to answer no useful end. The plaintiff's cup had pins projecting from the bottom, arranged in circles around a central one, which his specification described as serving to conduct the heat of the flame downwards into the vulcanizing plate and the combustible fluid. The defendant's original casting showed pins of similar arrangement. He...
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