Columbus Watch Co v. Robbins

• Citation: 37 L.Ed. 445,148 U.S. 266,13 S.Ct. 594
• Decision Date: 27 March 1893
• Docket Number: No. 1,242,1,242
• Parties: COLUMBUS WATCH CO. et al. v. ROBBINS et al
• Court: United States Supreme Court

148 U.S. 266

13 S.Ct. 594

37 L.Ed. 445

COLUMBUS WATCH CO. et al.

v ROBBINS et al.

No. 1,242.

March 27, 1893.

James Watson and M. D. Leggett, for appellants.

Lysander Hill, Geo. S. Prindle, and Frederick P. Fish, for appellees.

Mr. Chief Justice FULLER delivered the opinion of the court.

The record in this case consists of the following certificate, signed on the 10th day of October, 1892, by the judges then holding the circuit court of appeals for the sixth circuit:

'This cause comes before this court by an appeal from the decree of the circuit court of the United States for the eastern division of the southern district of Ohio, sustaining the letters patent of the appellees, and declaring that the appellants have infringed said letters patent, and directing the issue of a perpetual injunction, and ordering the statement of an account of profits and damages.

'The transcript presented to this court shows that the appeal was taken immediately from said decree, before accounting was had. Both parties desired that this court should give a full hearing on the merits of said decree, so far as relate to the validity of the patent and infringement, and should enter a final decree in this court thereon, the parties agreeing between themselves to suspend accounting until the decision of this court can be had. This court, however, cannot find that they have, under the seventh section of the act creating United States circuit appellate courts, jurisdiction to grant such a hearing and enter such a final decree as is asked, because said decree of the circuit court is only an interlocutory decree, and presents on appeal, under section 7, only the question whether the decree for an injunction, interlocutory in fact, however final in form, was improvidently granted in the legal discretion of the court, and involves only incidentally the question of the validity of the patent and the infringement complained of. The circuit court of appeals for the fifth circuit, under similar circumstances, after listening to adverse argument, in Jones Co. v. Munger Manuf'g Co., 50 Fed. Rep. 785, 1 C. C. A. 668, held that said section 7 gave jurisdiction to the court, on agreement of parties, to render a final decree on the merits of the validity and infringement of the patent involved. As the judgment of this court differs from that of a co-ordinate court, the instruction of the supreme court is respectfully requested upon the question.

'It is therefore ordered that a copy hereof, certified under the seal of the court, be transmitted to the clerk of the supreme court of the United States.'

By section 6 of the judiciary act of March 3, 1891, establishing circuit courts of appeals, (26 St. p. 826, c. 517,) it is provided that the judgments or decrees of those courts shall be final in certain enumerated classes of cases, and, among them, in all cases arising under the patent laws, but that in such cases the circuit court of appeals may certify to 'the supreme court of the United States any questions or propositions of law concerning which it desires the instruction of that court for its proper decision. And thereupon the supreme court may either give its instruction on the questions and propositions certified to it, which shall be binding upon the circuit court of appeals in such case, or it may be sent the whole record and cause may be sent up to it for its consideration, and thereupon shall decide the whole matter in controversy in the same manner as if it had been brought there for review by writ of error or appeal.'

And it is also provided, in respect of cases in which the judgments and decrees of the circuit courts of appeals...