Squeez-A-Purse Corporation v. Stiller
| Decision Date | 27 May 1959 |
| Docket Number | Civ. No. 33204. |
| Citation | 175 F. Supp. 667 |
| Parties | SQUEEZ-A-PURSE CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. Benjamin STILLER et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Ohio |
Sanford Schnurmacher, Cleveland, Ohio, Wm. R. Liberman, New York City, for plaintiff.
Albert R. Teare, Cleveland, Ohio, J. Wm. Freeman, Akron, Ohio, for defendants.
This is an action for a declaratory judgment of invalidity concerning Reissue Patent No. 24,166, brought by virtue of Title 28 U.S.C. §§ 2201 and 1338(a).
Reissue Patent 24,166, granted upon surrender by defendant Benjamin Stiller of his original Patent No. 2,667,906, discloses a device which has been manufactured as a coin purse and which has met with considerable commercial success as a give-away advertising specialty, the name of the advertiser being imprinted on the blank surface of the coin purse. The plaintiff was given one of these purses at a convention and copied it, so that infringement is conceded. It is a product and not a method patent with which we are concerned.
The following elements are in the claims:
3. said envelope defining a substantially fully closed interior volume having a depth relatively small in comparison to dimensions transverse to its depth, and
4. said envelope having a substantially transverse normally closed slit in one face extending from one periphery to an opposite periphery, said envelope having
5. oppositely disposed through apertures, and
6. the respective ends of said slit communicating with respective apertures, (the above are all in Claim 3)
7. the face bearing said slit being arched, (Claim 2)
8. the top of the arched slit side having a curvature of less magniture than the balance of the arched side, (Claim 4)
9. the slit face being substantially flat in the region of the slit, (Claim 5).
There were three questions which the court, at the close of the trial felt were controlling to a decision on the issues in the case: First, was there invention in the defendants' product: Second, what was the pertinent prior art: Third, the effectiveness of earlier art as anticipation where there was no commercial use or manufacture?
As to the latter, the evidence does not disclose any commercial use or manufacture of the prior patents offered by the plaintiff against the defendants' product. They are so-called paper patents considered not as anticipation but as testing the novel character of the challenged patent as an advance over the earlier disclosures. Republic Iron & Steel Co. v. Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., 6 Cir., 272 F. 386. For that reason it is not deemed necessary here to analyze and point out wherein the prior teaching fails to anticipate the novel features which are the prime support for validity; suffice it to say that aside from the weakness of non-use the prior art patents relied upon do not, in my judgment, constitute an adequate defense to validity and infringement of defendants' patented article.
In the final stages of the trial it was conceded that Claim 3 of the Reissue Patent No. 24,166 was the only claim to be looked to in determining whether plaintiff is entitled to a declaratory judgment of invalidity and non-infringement.
Is there invention in the defendants' article, and, if so, has it such novelty as to prevail over the earlier art and entitle it to a monopoly over like articles such as the plaintiff's which, it must be admitted, is a complete duplicate in detail, function and design?
The elements "F" and "G" are relied upon as the prime novel and valid inventive features of the defendants' patent.
It is realized and must be conceded that the defendants' article is not of striking inventive quality; it is in fact one of modest proportions, but "'tis enough, 'twill serve" as an article made up of a unique and...
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...v. Moss, 9 Cir., 201 F.2d 403; Ezee Stone Cutter Mfg. Co. v. Southwest Indies Prod., Inc., 8 Cir., 262 F.2d 183; Squeeze-a-Purse Corp. v. Stiller, D.C., 175 F.Supp. 667, aff'd. 280 F.2d 424 (CCA 6), cert. den. 364 U.S. 828, 81 S. Ct. 67, 5 L.Ed.2d 56. The standard of patentability (or valid......
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