Oriental Tissue Co. v. Louis De Jonge & Co.

• Decision Date: 19 June 1916
• Docket Number: 288.
• Citation: 234 F. 895
• Parties: ORIENTAL TISSUE CO. v. LOUIS DE JONGE & CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

234 F. 895

ORIENTAL TISSUE CO. v. LOUIS DE JONGE & CO.

No. 288.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

June 19, 1916

Chatfield District Judge, dissenting in part.

Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.

Suit by the Oriental Tissue Company against Louis De Jonge & Co. From a decree dismissing the bill, but holding complainant's patent valid, both parties appeal. Affirmed.

PATENTS 328-- VALIDITY AND INFRINGEMENT-- THIN LEAF OR FABRIC.

The Gregory patent, No. 848,301, for a thin leaf or fabric composed entirely of soluble cotton and a coloring matter incorporated therein, intended to be used for decorative purposes instead of metal leaf, held valid, but not infringed by defendant's article, which was composed of a large quantity of resinous matter.

E. C Seward, of New York City (Brown & Seward and Wm. McK. Barber all of New York City, of counsel), for complainant.

Seward Davis, of New York City (D. W. Cooper and Charles E. Wilson both of New York City, of counsel), for defendant.

Before COXE and WARD, Circuit Judges, and CHATFIELD, District Judge.

WARD Circuit Judge.

Upon appeal from an interlocutory decree in a former suit between these same parties, 218 F. 170, 134 C.C.A. 50, we held that a thin metallic sheet composed entirely of soluble cotton and a coloring matter was new, and that the patent for the article was valid even if there was some resin incidentally contained in the elements mentioned.

In this case the defendants call our attention much more extensively to the prior art and especially to foreign patents, in view of which they contend that the patent should now be held invalid and if this be not so, that as a much larger quantity of resinous matter is deliberately used in their new leaf, they do not infringe.

In the former case our position was that Gregory was the first person to produce thin metallic sheets as a substitute for gold leaf, silver leaf, and so forth and that he made a very great contribution to the decorative art, especially of embossing and bookbinding. The additional prior patents now called to our attention covering processes by which thin sheets or films may be made by flowing upon a glass surface mixtures of nitrocellulose or gun cotton or pyroxylin or collodion, which are similar to soluble cotton, in combination with a volatile solvent and coloring matter do not change our views. As...