Brush Electric Co. v. Accumulator Co.

• Decision Date: 16 March 1892
• Citation: 50 F. 833
• Parties: BRUSH ELECTRIC CO. et al. v. ACCUMULATOR CO. et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

50 F. 833

BRUSH ELECTRIC CO. et al. v. ACCUMULATOR CO. et al.

United States Circuit Court, D. New Jersey.

March 16, 1892

R. N Kenyon, W. C. Witter, and Charles E. Mitchell, for complainants.

F. H Betts and H. G. Ward, for defendants.

GREEN District Judge.

After careful consideration of the matters presented by counsel upon the argument of this cause, I am constrained to grant the motion of the complainants for a preliminary injunction upon the terms hereafter stated. The letters patent which it is charged in the bill of complaint the defendants have infringed have been, as to all their claims now in controversy in this suit, twice sustained, after protracted and desperately fought contests, by the circuit court for the southern district of New York; and the reasons for the conclusion reached have been fully and clearly given by Judge Coxe, who heard the argument of the causes, in very able and learned opinions. Brush Electric Co. v. Julien Electric Co., 41 F. 679; Brush Electric Co. v. Electrical Accumulator Co., 47 F. 48. The rule is well established that where, as the result of a contested controversy, letters patent have been sustained, preliminary injunctions will be granted against infringers as a matter of course by the court which has adjudged the letters patent valid, and as a matter of comity by the federal courts in other circuits. The defendants seek to avoid the operation of this rule in the case at bar by alleging that they have discovered new evidence since the litigation in the New York circuit, which will effectually destroy the validity of the letters patent which they are charged with violating. This evidence they set forth at length in ex parte affidavits. It relates to the alleged anticipating invention of an electric battery by a Dr. Blanchard, of Vermont, claimed to be in all respects similar to the invention of Brush, secured to him by the letters patent in controversy. This alleged invention, it is said, antedates the invention of Brush nearly 20 years. Whether it can properly be called 'new evidence' is a question of serious import. It is not denied that, although the present defendants were not the defendants upon the record in the New York causes, they were nevertheless closely allied in interest with those defendants through the greater part of that litigation, and did, either as a corporate body, or through the individual stockholders in the present defendant...