Bocz v. Hudson Motor Car Co.

• Decision Date: 17 May 1937
• Docket Number: No. 5648.,5648.
• Citation: Bocz v. Hudson Motor Car Co., 19 F.Supp. 385 (W.D. Mich. 1937)
• Parties: BOCZ v. HUDSON MOTOR CAR CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

19 F. Supp. 385

BOCZ v.HUDSON MOTOR CAR CO.

No. 5648.

District Court, E. D. Michigan, S. D.

May 17, 1937.

William G. Comb, of Detroit, Mich., for plaintiff.

Dike, Calver & Gray, of Detroit, Mich., for defendant.

TUTTLE, District Judge.

This suit involves four patents that were issued to Alexander J. Bocz.Mentioning them in the chronological order of the dates that they were issued, the first one, Exhibit 201, is patent No. 1,756,898, issued April 29, 1930.The second one, ExhibitNo. 202, is patent No. 1,886,246, issued November 1, 1932.The third one, ExhibitNo. 203, is patent No. 1,907,339, issued May 2, 1933.The fourth one, ExhibitNo. 204, is patent No. 1,982,151, issued November 27, 1934.

It is admitted by the defendant, and I find as a fact, that the plaintiff is the owner of these four patents.

Plaintiff alleges in his bill that each one of these patents and every claim of each one of these patents is valid and has been infringed by the defendant, and the defendant denies as to each claim of all four of the patents both validity and infringement.

The bill is peculiar in this respect: That it not only alleges the validity of the claims, but then proceeds and sets up the prior art, which is usually done by the defendant in its answer, and then further proceeds to explain away the particular patents of the prior art, which is a thing usually done in rebuttal.The proof has followed the bill in that regard.The plaintiff introduced the patents in suit and showed that he was the owner of them.He did not rely on the presumption of the law of validity, but proceeded to prove the patents of the prior art, and not only to do that thing which is usually done by the defendant in its proof, but then also as part of plaintiff's case explained those patents, which is usually done in rebuttal.I don't think there is any objection to that.It is fairness on the part of the plaintiff, rather than a subject for criticism, but I mention it as being unusual, both as to pleadings and as to the proofs.

In addition, the plaintiff orally requests the court to pass upon the validity of the patents.That is perhaps justified in this case because of the entire situation.Confusion has been caused as a result of the fact that plaintiff in the Patent Office and in the courts has been represented by so many different attorneys and during much of the time he has represented himself.

Plaintiff's present counsel is the fifty-third lawyer he has had in these problems.When we add the fact that during a large portion of the time these matters have been handled by plaintiff, who is not an attorney, one is not surprised that confusion is the result.He is entirely within his rights, because everyone has a right to appear in his own proper person and represent himself.

This record discloses the immense amount of time, thought, energy, and money plaintiff has devoted to the subjects here involved.

There is no doubt in my mind but that plaintiff conscientiously believes that he has made some valuable inventions and that the law ought to protect him in those inventions, and I am fully satisfied that he is convinced that others have used those inventions without compensating him.He has thought about that and worked with it until, like all of us when we are greatly interested in a thing, his own judgment is not good about it.

The extent to which plaintiff reaches hurried conclusions which are not correct is shown by the fact of this very suit against this defendant, alleging that it has infringed certain claims, which plaintiff now is frank to admit are not infringed.That just shows how easy it is for one that is so interested in a thing to reach a wrong conclusion.He thinks somebody has wronged him when he has not been wronged.

There are no claims of the patents in suit which are shown to have been infringed by defendant.

In spite of this, plaintiff asks this court to pass on the validity of these patents.I cannot help but think that if there were ever a case in which a plaintiff was justified in doing that, even though as to some claims he admitted they were not infringed, this is such a case; because here are some patents that are taking all of the plaintiff's energy, time, and money.The court owes it to plaintiff to tell him what the court thinks about these patents.

My sympathies are with the plaintiff.I have tried to watch the proofs carefully, to study these patents, and to study the prior art for the purpose of discovering something which could be preserved for him.

I am going to follow what the bill asks and what the plaintiff orally requests, and pass upon the validity of these patents.

Plaintiff has other suits pending.He has another suit in this court, against eight defendants, involving these same patents.The cases are expensive for him to try.

There are some principles of law concerning which I think the plaintiff is in error.Perhaps I have misinterpreted plaintiff's testimony and remarks on the subject, but there seems to be running through plaintiff's testimony and statements the thought that if he has invented something and has disclosed it to the public, the law will protect him in it.

I do not understand that there is anything in the patent law that attempts to go that far.It is my understanding of the patent law that one is protected only as to the very things he claims in his patent, and the things he gets allowed.It is the claims of the patent, not its specification, which measure the property of the patentee.Continental Paper Bag Co. v. Eastern Paper Bag Co., 210 U.S. 405, 419, 28 S.Ct. 748, 52 L.Ed. 1122, 1128;McCarty v. Lehigh Valley Railroad Co., 160 U.S. 110, 116, 16 S.Ct. 240, 40 L.Ed. 358, 361;Winans v. Denmead, 15 How. 330, 343, 14 L.Ed. 717, 722.If he claims something and the Patent Office does not allow it, even though he were entitled to it, if he stops there and submits to that disallowance, he gets only what is allowed.We must go to the claims to find out what a patentee has, and he gets an exclusive right, to prevent others from doing that thing for seventeen years, if his patent is good.

The things he discloses in his specifications and drawings are for the purpose of supporting his claims, explaining them.Under some circumstances, we construe the claims broadly, and under other circumstances narrowly, but the real purpose of the specifications and drawings is to support the claims.

The claims of a patent are to be read in the light of the specification to ascertain their true meaning but are not thereby to be expanded.Permutit Co. v. Graver Corporation, 284 U.S. 52, 52 S.Ct. 53, 76 L. Ed. 163;Chicago Forging & Mfg. Co. v. Bade-Cummins Mfg. Co., 63 F.(2d) 928(C.C.A.6);Mills Novelty Co. v. Monarch Tool & Mfg. Co., 76 F.(2d) 653, 655(C.C. A.6).

One should not make a claim unless it is supported by his specifications and his drawings, but no matter how much he might disclose by specifications and drawings, he only gets as his property what he claims.

Each claim must stand or fall and the question of infringement be decided upon the language used and the elements disclosed as in combination by that claim.White v. Dunbar, 119 U.S. 47, 7 S.Ct. 72, 30 L.Ed. 303;Howe Machine Co. v. National Needle Co., 134 U.S. 388, 10 S.Ct. 570, 33 L.Ed. 963;Lakewood Engineering Co. v. Stein, 8 F.(2d) 713(C.C.A.6);Farrington v. Haywood, 35 F.(2d) 628, 630(C.C.A.6).

That shows how important it is that applications be drafted with care in order to protect the rights of the petitioners for patents.As to the things they disclose in the specifications and drawings, they become part of the art.That might prevent somebody later from getting a patent on what is disclosed, but so far as the patentee himself is concerned, they are of no more service to him, except so far as he claims them, than they would be if they were published in some newspaper or some trade journal, because it stands simply as a publication.His rights are measured by his claims.That is his property, if his claims are good.

There is running through this case, on the part of the plaintiff, the thought that he has some property rights in that which he may have invented and shown in his specifications and drawings, even if he did not claim them.

The court cannot read into a claim for a combination an element not mentioned in it, although it may appear in the specification.Duncan v. Cincinnati Butchers' Supply Co., 171 F. 656, 663(C.C.A.6).

One cannot get a valid patent for anything which he or anyone else has put into public use or sold in this country for more than two years prior to the time when he applied for his patent.Another creature of the patent law, as I understand it, is that the trial judge can ignore a particular patent of the prior art if the plaintiff can carry the date of his invention back of the date of the application for the prior patent.

The difficulty about this rule from the standpoint of this plaintiff as a patentee is that he incurs the danger of defeating himself by having put his invention into public use more than two years before his date of applications.He testified that he made the thing and used it, and disclosed it to the public, more than two years prior to his application.He offers this testimony for the purpose of overcoming the effect of the prior art, but forgets that the court is entitled to consider it in the nature of an admission on the subject of public use.

The same degree of proof is not sufficient to overcome the anticipatory effect of the prior art, because there he must have proof beyond a reasonable doubt.The law is very strict about it.It says we must not trust to people's memory, because it is so uncertain as to dates.We require working drawings or the actual thing brought into court.The courts, uniformly, have required that high grade of proof for the one making such contention.It is easy to admit things on a record, and the court will take...