SOUTH BEND BAIT CO. v. Berman, 467.
| Decision Date | 27 April 1933 |
| Docket Number | No. 467.,467. |
| Parties | SOUTH BEND BAIT CO. v. BERMAN. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana |
Frank M. Slough, of Cleveland, Ohio, and George J. Oltsch, of South Bend, Ind., for plaintiff.
Ely & Barrow, of Akron, Ohio, and Hubbard, Farabaugh & Pettengill, of South Bend, Ind., for defendant.
This is a suit for infringement brought by plaintiff as assignee of Patent No. 1,833,581 issued November 24, 1931, to William M. Jordan, covering a fishing lure. Application for the patent was filed June 24, 1931, by William M. Jordan of Birmingham, Ala.
Suit is against defendant, Abraham Berman, doing business as Berman's Sports Goods Store. Abraham Berman is the nominal defendant, the suit being openly and concededly defended by the Enterprise Manufacturing Company, a corporation of the state of Ohio, which company manufactured and sold to defendant Berman the devices which plaintiff claims infringe its patent.
Plaintiff relies upon claim No. 17 of the patent in suit, which reads as follows: "A lure comprising a relatively thin elongated plate, a weight carried by said plate at and below the level of the forward end of said plate to facilitate lateral reciprocatory movement of the plate as it sinks in the water and to prevent overturning of the plate, a hook carried by said plate with its barb disposed adjacent the rear end thereof, means secured to the rear end of the lure for movement independently thereof to retard sinking of the rear end of said lure, and means at the forward end of said lure for attachment of a fish line thereto."
Infringement of claim 17 of the patent in suit is admitted.
The main advantages of the invention claimed by the inventor and his assignee, the plaintiff, are that this lure will not spin in or plane out of the water; but, on the contrary, when being drawn through the water in trolling or winding up after a cast, it will merely oscillate laterally and will travel through the water instead of planing to the surface; and that when cast into the water it will sink with a fluttering motion, and, while sinking or trolling, the weighted head to which the fish line is attached is down and the other end to which is attached the hook together with a pork rind, bangle, or spinner, is up.
To real sportsmen, whether on the bench, or on the water, these advantages are at once apparent.
The Enterprise Manufacturing Company manufactures what it calls a "Pippin" bait, and it is admitted by defendant that this Pippin bait or lure infringes claim 17 of the patent in suit. Defendant and the Enterprise Manufacturing Company, the manufacturer, claim justification for the infringement by virtue of an invention by one Charles T. Pflueger,...
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Pflueger v. Jordan, Patent Appeal No. 3428.
...taken to be used in a certain action pending in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Bait Co. v. Berman, 3 F. Supp. 174, wherein said South Bend Bait Company was plaintiff and one Abraham Berman was defendant, which action was for infringement of......