Feder v. A.B. Fiedler & Sons

• Decision Date: 21 June 1902
• Citation: 116 F. 378
• Parties: FEDER v. A. B. FIEDLER & SONS et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

116 F. 378

FEDER v. A. B. FIEDLER & SONS et al.

United States Circuit Court, S.D. New York.

June 21, 1902

Dickerson Brown & Raegener, for complainant.

H. D Donnelly (Coburn, McRoberts & McElroy, of counsel), for defendants.

HAZEL District Judge.

The defendant A. B. Fiedler & Sons, an Illinois corporation, is charged with having infringed, in the Southern district of New York, complainant's patent, No. 553,707, issued January 8 1896, for skirt protectors. The suit was begun March 7, 1901, by the personal service of process upon the defendant Beetson. It is alleged in the bill that Beetson was the agent of A. B. Fiedler & Sons, and, as such agent, sold the infringing device in the district where the suit was instituted. The complainant asserts that this court has jurisdiction of the defendant corporation, because it maintains a regular and established place of business in the Southern district of New York, and therefore the act of March 3, 1897 (29 Stat. 695), applies, by which it is provided that the circuit courts shall have jurisdiction in suits for infringement of letters patent in the district of which the defendant is an inhabitant, or where the defendant has a regular and established place of business, if such infringing acts are committed at such place. The defendant corporation promptly moved the court to set aside the service on the ground that the corporation never had a regular and established place of business in New York, and never had an agent therein conducting its business. The motion was dismissed, without prejudice, however, to interposing a plea to the jurisdiction. That course was followed. Proofs have been taken upon the plea, which were submitted upon the hearing. Complainant contends that the established facts are analogous to those presented in Thomson-Houston Electric Co. v. Bullock Electric Co. (C.C.) 101 F. 588. In that case the defendant company, citizen of Ohio, granted the exclusive right to its codefendant to sell the infringing electrical machinery in New York and other states on a basis of a discount from the lowest catalogue selling price. The terms of payment were agreed upon, and the privilege was reserved to the electrical company to return unsold machinery or stock, and receive a credit therefor on the books of the manufacturing company. Such an arrangement was held by Judge Wheeler a regular and established place of business in the district where the infringing machinery was sold, on the ground that as the manufacturing company controlled and participated in the sales in New York, its title to the property did not pass at the point where it was consigned. I incline to the belief that the facts in this...