Richards v. Meissner

• Decision Date: 08 March 1906
• Docket Number: 2,954.
• Citation: 158 F. 109
• Parties: RICHARDS et al. v. MEISSNER et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Missouri

158 F. 109

RICHARDS et al. v. MEISSNER et al.

No. 2,954.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Missouri, Western Division.

March 8, 1906

Gage Ladd & Small and E. Hayward Fairbanks, for complainants.

Frank Hagerman and Rector, Hibben & Davis, for defendants.

PHILIPS District Judge.

The restraining order granted herein by another judge, in practice is so perfunctory in character as to entitle it to little weight when the defendants appear to show cause against its further continuance. It is essentially ex parte; made without notice to the adverse party. Such restraining orders are often, and perhaps too often, issued by judges when so pressed with other matters that they have not the time to consider, with even little care, the questions of fact and law presented, feeling assured that little harm can come to the defendant in the few days intervening until the application for a temporary injunction will be heard pro and con. With the knowledge this court possesses of the various causes which have concurred to delay so long this hearing, it is of opinion that the complainants are in no position to assert any lack of diligence on defendants' part in not pressing an earlier hearing. The application for a temporary injunction, therefore, stands as if freshly made. Surely the complainants ought not to complain when, for so long a period, they have held the defendants restrained without their day in court. The granting of a temporary injunction rests largely in the sound discretion of the chancellor. While it does not finally determine the rights of the parties to the action, and is intended only to preserve the existing status until the case can be fully heard, and therefore it is not necessary that the court should, before granting it, be satisfied that the complainant will certainly prevail upon the final hearing of the case, the court should nevertheless, be careful that the complainant has a probable right, and that there is probable danger that such right will be defeated without the special interposition of the court. It is equally true that where, on the showing made at the preliminary hearing, the law as to the right to an injunction is quite doubtful, and that as much, if not more, injury would probably ensue to the defendants than to the complainants, and especially where, in the event of the bill being dismissed on final hearing, there is grave doubt of an adequate redress to the defendants resulting from the injunction, the court should refuse the application for a temporary injunction, and await action until all the facts appear on final hearing.

It appears from the bill itself, accentuated by the affidavits presented on this hearing, that the complainants and the defendants had a serious and protracted contest over their conflicting claims to a patent before the department of the government designated by law for the determination of such questions in the first instance; that, on the successive hearings in the Patent Office, the finding was in favor of the defendants, and that on review by the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia the action of the Patent Office was affirmed, and a patent directed to be issued to the defendants. While it is true that under section 4915, Rev St. U.S. (U.S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 3392), the defeated party is entitled to his remedy by bill in equity in the Circuit Court of the United States to have the whole question of priority of invention and right to a patent between the parties thrashed over and determined by the court, it is not correct to say, as some of the Circuit Courts have intimated, that little, if any, regard is to be had for the conclusion reached by the Patent Office on the questions of fact in the contest between the parties before it. On the contrary, Mr. Justice Brewer, in Morgan v. Daniels, 153 U.S. 120, 125, 14 Sup.Ct. 772, 773, 38 L.Ed. 657, held that 'upon principle and authority, it must be laid down as a rule that where the question decided in the Patent Office is one between contesting parties as to priority of invention, the decision there must be accepted as controlling upon that question of fact in any subsequent suit between the same parties, unless the contrary is established by testimony which, in character and amount, carries thorough conviction.'

The effect of this pronouncement by the Supreme Court is that where such a contest, as in the case at bar, has been had before the Patent Office, and before the Court of Appeals designated by law for such appeals, and the unsuccessful party nevertheless invokes his right under section 4915, by resorting in equity to a United States circuit court, he begins his controversy in the latter court with a prima facie case against him, which he must overcome by such a weight of evidence as to carry 'thorough conviction' to the mind of the circuit judge. Superadded to this, the right of such a complainant, who not only has not...