Chautauqua School of Nursing v. National School of Nursing

Decision Date14 November 1916
Docket Number10.
Citation238 F. 151
PartiesCHAUTAUQUA SCHOOL OF NURSING v. NATIONAL SCHOOL OF NURSING.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Stanchfield Lovell, Falck & Sayles, of Elmira, N.Y., for appellant.

Thrasher & Clapp, of Jamestown, N.Y., for appellee.

Before COXE, WARD, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges.

WARD Circuit Judge.

Appeal from a decree of the District Court holding the defendant guilty of infringing the complainant's copyright and ordering it to surrender all infringing publications in its possession or under its control to the complainant.

Each of the parties conducts a school for the education of nurses by correspondence and by printed lectures and books. In 1910 the complainant published and copyrighted its lecture No. 6 entitled 'Remedies, the Methods by which they are Administered,' some 12 out of 39 pages of which were devoted to hypodermic medication. The operation was divided into 12 successive steps, and the text describing and explaining it was numbered and divided in the same way. There were cuts of various forms of syringes obtained from the makers, directions how to use them, and as to the drugs and doses to be administered. Finally, there were 12 cuts taken from photographs of a person actually performing the operation of preparing and administering a hypodermic injection. In 1912, Maj. Charles R. Reynolds, a surgeon in the United States Army, published and copyrighted a lecture entitled 'Medicines and Their Administration.' The defendant obtained from him the right to print, sell, and distribute the lecture, and was doing so. Out of 39 pages, 17 are devoted to 'The Hypodermic.' The lecture divides the operation into 12 successive steps, described by separately numbered divisions of the text. It has cuts of syringes obtained from the manufacturers, directions as to their uses, the drugs and doses to be given, and 12 cuts showing the successive steps of the operation, being actual photographs of Maj. Reynolds' hands performing the same.

Infringement is charged, especially in connection with the subject of hypodermic injections. Of course, all previous medical knowledge was common property to any writer. There is in neither lecture any exercise of the imagination or any original investigation. But the complainant alleges that though it originated nothing new, it was the first to treat separately the successive steps in the operation as generally practiced and to illustrate each pictorially. The evidence sustains this allegation. We do not understand such a plan of instruction to be copyrightable. It is a startling proposition to say that the complainant has secured the monopoly for 28 years of stating in separate categories and illustrating...

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  • Rosemont Enterprises, Inc. v. Random House, Inc., 66 Civ. 1532.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York
    • June 25, 1966
    ...two works on the same subject matter. See Eisenchiml v. Fawcett Pub., Inc., supra, 246 F.2d at 604; Chautauqua School of Nursing v. National School of Nursing, 238 F. 151, 153 (2 Cir. 1916); Greenbie v. Noble, supra, 151 F.Supp. at 65. But an author is not entitled to appropriate the copyri......
  • Continental Casualty Company v. Beardsley
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York
    • April 4, 1957
    ...37 F. 103; Edward Thompson Co. v. American Law Book Co., 2 Cir., 1903, 122 F. 922, 62 L.R.A. 607; Chautauqua School of Nursing v. National School of Nursing, 2 Cir., 1916, 238 F. 151; Griggs v. Perrin, C.C.N.D.N.Y.1892, 49 F. 15; Stone & McCarrick, Inc., v. Dugan Piano Co., D.C.E.D.La.1914,......
  • Greenbie v. Noble
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York
    • April 3, 1957
    ...denied 348 U.S. 843, 75 S.Ct. 64, 99 L.Ed. 664; Hartfield v. Peterson, 2 Cir., 1937, 91 F.2d 998; Chautauqua School of Nursing v. National School of Nursing, 2 Cir., 1916, 238 F. 151; Sampson & Murdock Co. v. Seaver-Radford Co., 1 Cir., 1905, 140 F. 539; Ziegelheim v. Flohr, D.C.E.D. N.Y., ......
  • Harold Lloyd Corporation v. Witwer
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit
    • April 10, 1933
    ...on Copyright, page 205, which was also cited with approval by the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit in Chautauqua School v. National School, 238 F. 151, 153, as follows: "Works alike may be original. — It is not essential that any production, to be original or new within the me......
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