Snyder v. Bunnell

• Decision Date: 11 November 1886
• Citation: 29 F. 47
• Parties: SNYDER and others v. BUNNELL and others. [1]
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

29 F. 47

SNYDER and others v. BUNNELL and others. ^[1]

United States Circuit Court, S.D. New York.

November 11, 1886

G. G Frelinghuysen and A. C. Farnham, for complainants.

H. H Morse and C. C. Leeds, for defendants.

COXE J.

The defendants are charged with infringement of letters patent No. 103,383, granted to James P. Snyder for an improvement in electro-magnetic burglar-alarm apparatus. The invention 'consists in an arrangement for setting in action automatically a secondary circuit, which will continue the alarm, although the circuit first set in action may be suddenly stopped again by the shutting of the door or window ' The claim is as follows:

'An alarm indicator, arranged for automatically causing a secondary and independent circuit at the indicators by the action of the armature lever with a disk or other device, and the springs or other closing devices, and a secondary line of wire, I, H/3/, connecting the battery and the magnet, all substantially as specified.'

The evidence of infringement is confined to the sale by the defendants on the seventeenth of December, 1884, of one instrument known as an 'automatic drop,' and the admission by one of the defendants that others like it had been sold by his firm.

It is conceded that this instrument may be used, in connection with the other apparatus described in the patent, so as to constitute an infringement. It is also conceded that it is susceptible of a perfectly innocent use. There is no proof that the defendants have ever used it in infringing combination. There is, indeed, no direct proof that it was ever so used by any one. Certainly there is nothing to indicate that the defendants have sold an 'automatic drop' knowing that it was intended to be used to infringe the patent. For aught that appears, every instrument sold by them may have been used in a perfectly legitimate manner.

If the defendants were doing what the complainants charge, namely, 'making and putting on the market an article which, of necessity, to their knowledge, is to be used for the purpose of infringing the complainants' patent,' there would be little difficulty in holding that the complainants' rights are invaded. But it is thought that the evidence will not warrant so broad an accusation. If held liable for selling an 'automatic drop,' it might with plausibility be urged that they are equally inculpated by the sale of a galvanic battery or an electric bell, for these are necessary adjuncts to the patented combination.

The complainants invoke the doctrine of contributory infringement, the clearest illustration of which is, perhaps found in Wallace v. Holmes, 9 Blatchf. 65. In that case the complainants had a patent for a burner in combination with a chimney. The defendants manufactured and sold the burner, leaving the purchaser to supply the chimney, without which...