General Electric Co. v. Continental Lamp Works, Inc.

• Decision Date: 03 April 1922
• Docket Number: 256.,255
• Citation: 280 F. 846
• Parties: GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. v. CONTINENTAL LAMP WORKS, Inc. SAME v. UNITED LAMP MANUFACTURERS' CORPORATION.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

280 F. 846

GENERAL ELECTRIC CO. v. CONTINENTAL LAMP WORKS, Inc.

SAME v. UNITED LAMP MANUFACTURERS' CORPORATION.

Nos. 255, 256.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

April 3, 1922

Howson & Howson, of New York City (Frederick P. Fish, of Boston Mass., Hubert Howson, of New York City, and Albert G. Davis of Schnectady, N.Y., of counsel), for appellant.

Richard Eyre and W. N. Seligsberg, both of New York City, for appellees.

Before HOUGH, MANTON, and MAYER, Circuit Judges.

MANTON Circuit Judge.

The appellant is the owner of the Langmuir patent, No. 1,180,159 granted April 18, 1916, which covers a new type of incandescent lamp. It was sustained in this court in General Electric Co. v. Nitro-Tungsten Lamp Co (C.C.A.) 266 F. 994. These are separate suits, one against the Continental Lamp Works, Inc., and the other against United Lamp Manufacturers' Corporation. The former was organized in February, 1920, after the decision in the District Court in the Nitro-Tungsten Case. It has since advertised the tungsten or vacuum lamps which do not infringe the patent in suit, but it has engaged in business exclusively since its organization in the manufacture of lamps of the gas-filled type, which lamps embody the invention of Langmuir, and it is claimed by the appellant to be identical with the lamps enjoined in the Nitro-Tungsten suit, and in a subsequent suit by General Electric Company v. Alpha, where the District Court again affirmed the finding that the Langmuir patent was valid.

The appellee the United Lamp Manufacturers' Corporation was organized July 29, 1921. It is said to be a consolidation of interests of companies which were not licensed to use the invention of the patent in suit. It has been engaged in selling lamps of the Langmuir type. It sells vacuum tungsten lamps and vacuum carbon lamps. A patent was issued to Just and Hanaman, which is now owned by the appellant, and which was held valid and infringed in General Electric Co. v. Laco-Philips, 233 F. 96, 147 C.C.A. 166. This patent was for a tungsten lamp, and was like the carbon lamp, in that it operated in a vacuum. Both of these inventions were of a high order, and recognized by judicial decision as such. Dr. Langmuir was able to produce a lamp which in large size consumed one-half a watt for each candle power which it produced. It meant one-half of the energy consumed by the vacuum tungsten lamp and one-sixth of the energy consumed by the carbon lamp, and resulted in a great saving to the public.

On this application for an injunction pending the final hearing, the affidavits offered in defense did not plead invalidity or noninfringement of the patent; but a defense was made on the contention that the lamps were sold by the appellees lawfully because of an implied license by reason of the sale of bases. The lamp base is an appendage which is fastened permanently to the incandescent lamp before it is sold. It costs, at retail, 1 or 2 per cent. of the selling price of the lamp, and it is used as a base for the lamp of the Langmuir patent. When the appellant sold these bases, the contract of sale provided in red letters as follows:

'The sale of bases by us confers on the purchaser no license under any patents of the General Electric Company covering or relating to the structure of Incandescent Lamps, or the materials, machines, or processes used in their manufacture.'

Knowledge by the appellees of this notice, so written on the terms of sale, is conceded. The defense contends that by reason of the purchase of the bases there was an implied license to use the lamps constructed under the Langmuir patent. The court below sustained the contention of the appellees, upon the theory that the bases which the appellant sold to the appellees were sold with the knowledge that these manufacturers were making the lamps under an implied license from the appellant, and that because the bases which were sold could be used only in constructing a patented article (Langmuir construction), it is presumed to be intended, both by the buyer and seller, to be used for that specific purpose, and, when appellant made a sale, it carried with it to the appellees an implied license. The bases in question were standard articles of manufacture, and were constructed under patent for many years before the Langmuir lamp was invented. It was because the appellant did not wish to license the appellees in the use of the Langmuir patent, or any other patent which had to do with incandescent lamps, that they inserted the notice in the terms of sale.

It is claimed that if the appellant sold the bases without knowledge or notice of the possibility or probability of the infringing use, no implication of license could have been raised, and the notice would have been unnecessary. But the very act by which the appellant is now charged with having waived notice seems to us to be the one means it might have employed in serving notice upon the purchaser that it would not permit the bases to be used in connection with the sale of the Langmuir lamp. The issues in both cases are alike. The lamp base is a device external to the lamp. The Langmuir patent does not show any base. It shows two wires projecting from the bulb. These wires may be connected with an electric circuit, and the lamp will burn without a base. The ordinary way, however, of making such a connection, is through a base and this consists of a screwed shell adapted to screw into an Edison type lamp socket and a center contact fastened mechanically to the screwed shell, but electrically insulated from it. The screwed shell of the lamp socket is connected to one of the terminals of the electric circuit. The lamp socket contains a center contact, which is connected with the other terminal of the electric circuit, and it is adapted to connect with the center contact of the base. Two styles of bases are used on the infringing lamps, to wit, the 'standard medium' and the 'mogul.' It appears that the base is merely a means of supporting the lamp and carrying current to it. The standard medium base is used by all parties for the various types of lamps, patented and unpatented. It is used for the carbon lamp, which was covered by patents which have now expired. It is also used in the manufacture of attachment plugs, which are devices attached to lamp cords and screwed into lamp sockets, in order to connect in circuit electric fans and similar devices. The mogul base was one time restricted to the carbon lamps, and has been used on both carbon and tungsten, whether or not embodying the invention of the Langmuir patent. It is used on certain vacuum tungsten lamps and employed in series circuits. It is not restricted to gas-filled lamps, as contended for by appellees. It also appears that the standard medium bases sell at from $5.50 to $6.50 a thousand, and the mogul at $26 a thousand, while the gas-filled lamps with the standard medium bases list at from 65 cents to $2.60 each. The gas-filled lamps with the mogul base are listed at from $3.15 to $9 each. It thus appears that the value of the base is small compared with the value of the lamps, and indicates the improbability of the appellant wishing to license the...