Accumulator Co. v. Consolidated Electric Storage Co.
| Decision Date | 13 December 1892 |
| Citation | 53 F. 793 |
| Parties | ACCUMULATOR CO. v. CONSOLIDATED ELECTRIC STORAGE CO. et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey |
F. H Betts, for the motion.
William H. Kenyon and C. L. Mitchell, opposed.
The defendants are charged with the willful violation of the injunction heretofore granted by this court, whereby the defendants were commanded and enjoined--
'Forever to desist from directly or indirectly making or causing to be made, using or causing to be used, or vending to others to be used in any manner, any secondary batteries containing or embodying the invention secured to Joseph Wilson Swan on the 17th day of December, 1889, by letters patent No. 11,047, for an improvement in secondary batteries, which invention was described therein as follows: 'A perforated or cellular plate for secondary batteries, having the perforations or cells extending through the plate, and the active material or materials to become active, packed in said perforations or cells only, substantially as described."
It is alleged by the complainants that the structure now made used, and sold by the defendants is practically the same structure which they were enjoined from using, making, or selling, and that, if such structure is in any respect whatever different therefrom, the difference is an unsubstantial one, introduced for the very purpose of evasion, and, in effect, still appropriates the essence of the invention to Mr. Swan.
The cause in which the enjoining decree of this court was made was never argued or presented to it for adjudication upon its merits. A suit wholly identical in character, between practically the same parties, touching the same invention, and alleging the same acts and causes of infringement, was at issue in the circuit court for the southern district of New York, and was there finally determined in favor of the complainants' the decree upholding the letters patent referred to, in all respects, and sustaining the invention thereby secured to Mr. Swan as clearly having patentable novelty. Electrical Accumulator Co. v. New York & H. R. Co., 50 F. 81. As a result of this adjudication, the defendants were duly enjoined by that court from all further infringing acts. This adjudication being brought to the attention of this court, upon the well-known doctrine of comity, it was immediately followed in this circuit; and, practically without any contest, an enjoining decree similar to the one made in New York was made in this circuit. It follows that the construction which the circuit court in the district of New York gave to the letters patent in this case is the construction supposed to be adopted by this court in its action granting the injunction; and such construction will be adhered to in the consideration of this motion. In fact, upon the somewhat hurried examination that has been given to the matters involved on this motion, I cannot see how any other or broader construction could be given to the letters patent than has been given in the suit referred to by his honor, Judge Coxe. The only claim made by the inventor expressly declares that the main characteristic of his invention consists in a plate for secondary batteries, having cells or perforations extending through the plate, and the active material, or material to become active, packed in said perforations or cells only. The word 'only' clearly means 'exclusively,' and that the inventor meant, therefore, to say that in his invention the active material, or the material to become active, was to be placed or packed in the perforations or cells of the plate, to the entire exclusion of every other receptacle or part of the plate. Judge Coxe, in his opinion, tersely says:
'The real invention of Swan was the combination of a support, plate, or grid, a perforated plate, with active material so combined therewith as to exist only in the perforations.'
I concur fully in that conclusion.
Adopting then, this as the true and legal definition of the invention of Mr. Swan, and which the defendants were enjoined from using, making, or vending, does the structure now made and sold by them in any wise infringe it? If it does, they have undoubtedly violated the mandatory order of this...
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