Strait v. National Harrow Co.
| Decision Date | 10 August 1892 |
| Citation | 51 F. 819 |
| Parties | STRAIT et al. v. NATIONAL HARROW CO. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York |
Frederick Collin, for plaintiffs.
Edward H. Risley, for defendant.
This is a suit wherein the relief demanded is a permanent injunction to restrain the defendant from instituting or prosecuting any action in any court of law or equity against the plaintiffs for the infringement of any letters patent owned by the defendant covering improvements in spring-tooth harrows, or from instituting or prosecuting any such suits against any person using the spring-tooth harrows manufactured by the plaintiffs. The defendant has demurred to the complainant. In substance, the complainant shows that the defendant has entered into a combination with various other manufacturers of spring-tooth harrows for the purpose of acquiring a monopoly in this country in the manufacture and sale of the same, and, as an incident thereto, has acquired all the rights of the other manufacturers for the exclusive sale and manufacture of such harrows under patents, or interests in patents, owned by them respectively. Such a combination may be an odious and wicked one, but the proposition that the plaintiffs, while infringing the rights vested in the defendant under letters patent of the United States, is entitled to stop the defendant from bringing or prosecuting any suit therefor because the defendant is an obnoxious corporation, and is seeking to perpetuate the monopoly which is conferred upon it by its title to the letters patent, is a novel one, and entirely unwarranted. The party having such a patent has a right to bring suit on it, not only against a manufacturer who infringes, but against dealers and users of the patented article, if he believes the patent is being infringed; and the motive which prompts him to sue is not open to judicial inquiry, because, having a legal right to sue, it is immaterial whether his motives are good or bad and he is not required to give his reasons for the attempt to assert his legal rights. 'The exercise of the legal right cannot be affected by the motive which controls it. ' Kiff v. Youmans, 86 N.Y. 329.
The complaint alleges that the plaintiffs, and the other persons threatened with suit, do not infringe any of the patents of the defendant; but, as was said by Mr. Justice HUNT, in Celluloid Manuf'g Co. v. Goodyear Dental Vulcanite Co., 13 Blatchf. 384:
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