Putnam v. Lomax
| Decision Date | 07 October 1881 |
| Parties | PUTNAM v. LOMAX. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
J. P Altgelt, for complainant.
Charles E. Anthony and West & Bond, for defendant.
BLODGETT D.J.
This was a suit brought by the complainant against the defendant for an infringement of a patent issued to the complainant and reissued January 19, 1864, for an improvement in wire bottle-stopper fastening. On the hearing the defendant was adjudged to infringe complainant's patent, and reference was made to a master to hear proofs, and report the profits which had accrued to the defendants by the use of complainant's patent, and to ascertain and report the damages which complainant had sustained thereby. The master has reported, finding amount of profits made by defendant by use of complainant's device, within the time in controversy, to be $3,585.11. To this report defendant has filed seven exceptions.
All these exceptions relate to the amount which complainant is entitled to recover from defendant for the alleged infringement of his patent.
The master found that the defendant had made over 4,000 gross of the fastenings in violation of the complainant's patent that complainant was in the business of manufacturing fasteners to supply the trade; and that his profits were 86 1/4 cents per gross for the goods at his factory. He therefore fixed the defendant's profits at what would have been the complainant's profits if defendant had bought of him.
The claim of this patent, which was sustained by the court in this case, and has been construed and sustained in several other cases by different courts, is 'for the U-shaped fastener made of wire, with the ends returned and connected to the bottle in order that the pressure on the cork may cause the fastener to hold more securely, as specified;' and it is urged that as the U-shaped fastener alone does not make the complete instrument or device, but is only one part or element of the device, the profits on the whole fastener (part of which is not covered by complainant's patent) do not furnish a rule for the measure of the profits made by defendant, or of complainant's damages.
Proof shows that the defendant is engaged in the business of bottling mineral waters, beer, etc., and uses these stopper-fastenings in his business, and also that he has sold some to the trade. It also appears that the complainant was engaged, during the term of infringement, as a manufacturer of these bottle-stopper fastenings under his patent, and had ample facilities to supply the entire demand of the trade for these fastenings.
A patentee has the right to the monopoly given him by his patent, and...
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Reed Roller Bit Co. v. Hughes Tool Co.
...can show — and the burden is on him to show — that a portion of them is the result of some other thing used by him.'" See, also, Putnam v. Lomax (C. C.) 9 F. 448; Covert v. Sargent (C. C.) 38 F. 237; Pressed Prism Glass Co. v. Continuous Glass Prism Co. (C. C.) 181 F. 151; Bredin v. Nationa......