Consolidated Rubber Tire Co. v. Republic Rubber Co.

• Citation: 195 F. 768
• Decision Date: 11 April 1912
• Docket Number: 29,177.
• Parties: CONSOLIDATED RUBBER TIRE CO. et al. v. REPUBLIC RUBBER CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois

195 F. 768

CONSOLIDATED RUBBER TIRE CO. et al. v. REPUBLIC RUBBER CO.

No. 29,177.

United States District Court, N.D. Illinois, Eastern Division.

April 11, 1912

Charles W. Stapleton, Staley & Bowman, John G. Campbell, Frederick P Fish, Border Bowman, and Lawrence Maxwell, for complainants.

Dyrenforth Lee, Chritton & Wiles (Philip C. Dyrenforth and Russell Wiles, of counsel), for defendant.

KOHLSAAT Circuit Judge.

The bill herein was filed to enjoin infringement of patent No 554,675, granted to A. W. Grant on February 18, 1896, for an improvement in rubber tired wheels. The two claims thereof read as follows, viz.:

'1. A vehicle-wheel having a metallic rim with angularly-projecting flanges to form a channel or groove with tapered or inclined sides, a rubber tire, the inner portion of which is adapted to fit in said groove or channel and the outer portion having sides at an angle to the inner portion, the angle or corner between the outer and inner portions being located within the outer periphery of the flanges, and independent retaining-wires passing entirely through the inner portions of said tire and also within the outer peripheries of the flanges, substantially as described.

'2. A vehicle-wheel having a metallic rim with outwardly-projecting flanges at an angle to the plane of said wheel so as to form a channel or groove having tapered or inclined sides, a rubber tire, the inner portion of which is adapted to fit in said tapered groove or channel, and the outer or exposed portions formed at an angle thereto, the angle or corner between the said portions being placed within the outer periphery of said flanges, openings extending entirely through the unexposed portion of said tire, and independent retaining-wires in said openings, and a reinforcing-strip of fibrous material placed at the bottom of said tire and wholly within said flanges, substantially as specified.'

The cause is before the court on final hearing.

The bill sets out the assignment of the application before grant of patent to complainant the Rubber Tire Wheel Company, with the request to the commissioner to issue the patent to the assignee, the failure to bring the assignment to the notice of the commissioner, whereby the patent was issued to the inventor, the resultant title in the Rubber Tire Wheel Company, the granting of an oral license to the other complainant, the Consolidated Rubber Tire Company, in June or July, 1899, the loss of the assignment, the execution of a new assignment by Grant to the Rubber Tire Wheel Company, the record of the original assignment in the Patent Office, the sustaining of the title in other jurisdictions, and the facts pertaining to possession, and the acts evidencing such right of possession, substantially as set out in Consolidated Rubber Tire Co. v. B. F. Goodrich Co. (cause No. 29,176) 195 F. 764, heard at the same time and decided herewith. In that cause the court held secondary evidence of execution and delivery of the assignment to be admissible; but found that the description of the matter assigned was not satisfactorily identified with the patent in suit, either upon the face of the assignment or by the evidence, and that title was not clearly shown. The grant and validity of the patent were, and now are, deemed established. In the present case the evidence of infringement rests upon the testimony of certain employes of the defendant, from which it appears that defendant never sold any of complainants' wheels; but did sell at Chicago rubber tires of the kind shown as 'Complainants' Exhibit, sections of defendant's infringing tire,' prior to the commencement of this suit, and did sell a small amount of channels and wire, such as are used in constructing the tire of the patent. The defendant never assembled said tire, nor had it any implements necessary for that purpose. The tires sold were intended to be, and were, applied to wheels by the St. Louis branch. All of the parties hereto are nonresidents of this district; so that the only ground of jurisdiction consists in the alleged fact that the infringement was committed here.

The evidence fails to show that defendant manufactured or sold the vehicle wheel of the patent; but that it did make and sell rubber tires like those of the patent. It never sold an assembled tire. Infringement, if any, must be predicated upon the fact, if it be a fact, that defendant made and sold, or made or sold in this district, rubber tires of the kind made an element of the patent in suit, and sold channels and wire, all or any of which were so sold to be used at St. Louis, Mo., in the construction of a wheel in imitation of complainants' rubber wheel.

This so defendant contends, does not constitute the character of infringement contemplated by the statute giving jurisdiction to the court of the district in which an infringement takes place. It insists that there must exist a completed act of...