Dowagiac Mfg. Co. v. Superior Drill Co.
| Decision Date | 18 June 1908 |
| Docket Number | 1,773. |
| Citation | 162 F. 479 |
| Parties | DOWAGIAC MFG. CO. v. SUPERIOR DRILL CO. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
F. L Chappell, for appellant.
Border Bowman and P. A. Staley, for appellee.
Before LURTON, SEVERENS, and RICHARDS, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from a decree founded upon an accounting of profits made by the appellant in the manufacture and sale of disc grain drills, containing the invention of the Packham patent No. 557,868, and in infringement of the rights secured by said patent. The case came here on a former occasion upon an appeal from a decree sustaining the validity of the patent referred to in respect to the first, second, third, and sixth claims thereof, declaring the infringement thereof by the appellant, and awarding an injunction against further infringement. The decree of the Circuit Court was here affirmed, and the cause remanded for the ascertainment of the profits and damages due to the plaintiff accruing from the infringement. 115 F. 886, 53 C.C.A. 36. In affirming the decree, we expressed the opinion that:
'The invention constituted a distinct and valuable improvement and was patentable for what the claims here involved fairly import.'
The invention of the patent consisted of the addition of a shield to the structure of disc grain drills, which keeps the furrow made by the disc open while the seed is dropping into it, and deflects the seed under the disc while the latter holds the soil up, and upon passing lets the soil back upon the seed. The Circuit Court referred the cause to the master to take proofs and report the profits and damages.
It seems to have been contended before the master by the appellant, while engaged in the endeavor to ascertain the profits, that in manufacturing and selling the infringing drills it had employed other patents, which had enhanced the value of the drills and the price at which they were sold and reference was made to certain patents belonging to the plaintiff. These patents had been set out in the bill, and infringement thereof charged. But they had been declared void by the Circuit Court, by a decree which remains unreversed and not appealed from. They should, therefore, have been regarded as part of the unpatented art. There was no proof which could have justified the master in the conclusion that any other invention than that of the Packham patent was present in the drills which constituted the infringement. Nor did the master find that there was any other patent involved in the infringing drills which was entitled to share in the profits than those belonging to the plaintiff which had been held void. He specified those as laying the foundation for applying the doctrine of Garretson v. Clark, 111 U.S. 120, 4 Sup.Ct. 291, 28 L.Ed. 371, and other like cases. The fact is that the conditions assumed for the statement of the rule in the case referred to did not exist. The present case in its facts is in closer analogy to the ...
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