Goldschmidt Thermit Co. v. Primos Chemical Co.

• Decision Date: 17 August 1914
• Docket Number: 1221.
• Citation: Goldschmidt Thermit Co. v. Primos Chemical Co., 216 F. 382 (E.D. Pa. 1914)
• Parties: GOLDSCHMIDT THERMIT CO. v. PRIMOS CHEMICAL CO.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

216 F. 382

GOLDSCHMIDT THERMIT CO. v. PRIMOS CHEMICAL CO.

No. 1221.

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

August 17, 1914

J Addison Abrams, of Philadelphia, Pa., and Charles F. Dane and Livingston Gifford, both of New York City, for plaintiff.

Synnestvedt Bradley, Lechner & Fowkes, of Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant.

DICKINSON District Judge.

This motion is based upon the three grounds of the existence of an adequate remedy at law, want of equity, and laches. The first two blend into one, and the last is not seriously pressed.

The positions taken and arguments advanced on the respective sides are alike in this: That they ignore the existence of the rules of practice in the courts of equity in the United States, which were called to the attention of counsel at the oral argument at bar as having a controlling bearing upon the main point involved. If the equity rules are to be ignored as the printed briefs submitted presuppose, the argument for the defendant proceeds upon these propositions: The provision of the seventh amendment to the Constitution of the United States preserves the right of trial by jury. A defendant, to whom this right belongs, cannot be deprived of it by the subterfuge of avoiding a 'suit at common law,' when such is the proper remedy. This right is buttressed and recourse to such a subterfuge forbidden by section 723 of the Revised Statutes (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 583), which forbids the courts to entertain a suit in equity 'where a plain, adequate, and complete remedy may be had at law. ' This would seem to restrict the inquiry to this one question. At the most a bill should not be sustained where, 'according to the course and principles of courts of equity,' a chancellor should not entertain jurisdiction. Jurisdiction in equity does not attach where the real purpose is simply to recover for the profits and damages in the case of infringement of a patent. Jurisdiction is conferred by the fact that an equitable remedy, such as injunction, is really incidental to the case. Root v. Railway Co., 105 U.S. 189, 26 L.Ed. 975; Clark v. Wooster, 119 U.S. 322, 7 Sup.Ct. 217, 30 L.Ed. 392.

By section 4921 of the Revised Statutes (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p 3395) the courts are given power to grant injunctions in patent cases. Numbers of cases are to be found in which the courts have dismissed bills under circumstances in which they would not grant injunctions. On the other hand, the argument for the plaintiff proceeds upon these grounds: The plaintiff, at the time of the filing of his bill, being entitled to an injunction and being entitled also to an accounting, jurisdiction attaches, and, having once attached, it is not taken away because his right to an injunction is lost by lapse of time, if his claim to other relief continues. All the cases recognize that there may be in a case elements calling for equitable relief which will save the bill even if the right to an injunction be gone. One of...