Wayne Mfg. Co. v. Coffield Motor Washer Co.

• Decision Date: 04 December 1913
• Docket Number: 3,939.
• Citation: 209 F. 614
• Parties: WAYNE MFG. CO. et al. v. COFFIELD MOTOR WASHER CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

209 F. 614

WAYNE MFG. CO. et al. v. COFFIELD MOTOR WASHER CO.

No. 3,939.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

December 4, 1913

L. C Kingsland, of St. Louis, Mo. (J. D. Rippey, of St. Louis Mo., on the brief), for appellants.

Richard J. McCarty, of Dayton, Ohio (Homer Hall, of St. Louis, Mo on the brief), for appellee.

Before HOOK and SMITH, Circuit Judges, and AMIDON, District Judge.

AMIDON District Judge.

This is an appeal from an order granting a preliminary injunction to restrain defendants, appellants here, from infringing plaintiff's patent, No. 12,719, for a water motor. The patent has been sustained, after protracted litigation, in the Fourth circuit. P. T. Coffield & Son v. Spears &amp Riddle et al. (C.C.) 169 F. 641; Coffield Motor Washer Co. v. A. D. Howe Co. (C.C.) 172 F. 668; A. D. Howe Mach. Co. v. Coffield Motor Washer Co., 197 F. 541, 117 C.C.A. 37. The drawings and specifications are there set out in full, and need not be repeated here. The answer sets up three defenses: (1) Lack of novelty in the plaintiff's patent. (2) Denial of infringement. (3) Intervening rights acquired between plaintiff's original patent and its present patent which is a reissue. All of these defenses were interposed in the litigation in the fourth circuit. With a single exception the same patents are cited in the present suit as were cited in the cases referred to. One additional citation is made, patent No. 220,625, issued to A. Knecht; but, when a patent has been sustained as the result of a final hearing, the right thus secured, except in rare cases, cannot be destroyed by a new citation from the inexhaustible storehouse of the Patent Office. If that could be done, the holder of a patent would never obtain peace. It is impossible to judge of the merits of the patent which is alleged to anticipate, except as the result of a final hearing where its place, not only on paper, but in the industrial world, can be ascertained.

As to the second defense, the denial of infringement, that, so far as this record discloses, is devoid of merit. The stem and spring in defendant's structure is an obvious mechanical equivalent of the same parts of the patent in suit.

There is also abundant evidence to support the contention that defendant acquired no intervening rights between the time of plaintiff's original patent and its present reissue.

We can discover no abuse of discretion in the action of the...