Wendell v. American Laundry Machinery Co.

• Citation: 248 F. 698
• Decision Date: 17 January 1918
• Docket Number: 2303.
• Parties: WENDELL et al. v. AMERICAN LAUNDRY MACHINERY CO. et al.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (3rd Circuit)

248 F. 698

WENDELL et al. v. AMERICAN LAUNDRY MACHINERY CO. et al.

No. 2303.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

January 17, 1918

J Bonsall Taylor and E. Hayward Fairbanks, both of Philadelphia, Pa., for appellants.

Frederick F. Church, of Rochester, N.Y., for appellees.

Before BUFFINGTON, McPHERSON, and WOOLLEY, Circuit Judges.

WOOLLEY Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from a decree of the District Court dismissing the plaintiff's bill charging infringement of Letters Patent No. 1,137,438, issued to the administratrix of the inventor Fred C. Wendell. 239 F. 555.

Wendell was an inventor of laundry machines or ironing mangles. For some time prior to the year 1909, he had been developing the machine of the patent in suit. This machine irons and dries flat laundry work, such as sheets, pillow slips, towels napkins, etc., and consists essentially of two steam heated rotatable drums or cylinders superposed one above the other to which the article to be ironed is fed and over which it is carried by a series of belts or aprons, whereby the article is ironed on one side and then reversed and ironed on the other. In connection with this organization, there is means for supporting, driving and exerting pressure on the various drums, rolls and aprons.

The Willey Company, a corporation created to exploit the Wendell machine, began the manufacture, advertisement and sale of that machine in 1909, continued it through 1910 and 1911, and for a period after the death of Wendell on December 9, 1912.

As Wendell had not applied for a patent for his invention, his administratrix employed an expert machinist to develop in association with a patent solicitor the necessary matter for a patent application. On February 1, 1913, she applied for the patent which was granted later and is now in suit. She then constituted The Willey Company exclusive licensee.

The patentee and the licensee brought this action against the American Laundry Machinery Company as maker, and Locust Laundry Company as user, of a machine which they charge infringes claims 1 to 5 inclusive of the Wendell patent.

While the case covered the usual range of issues as to validity and infringement, it was principally tried and was finally decided on the single issue of the patent's invalidity because of public use and commercial sale of the patented device more than two years prior to the application for the patent. R.S. Sec. 4886. As that issue was purely one of fact, and, as determined, was conclusive of the controversy, we shall limit our inquiry to it, or rather, to the phase of it raised on the appeal.

The plaintiff's exception to the decree below is not directed against the facts, which are either admitted or else proved by undisputed evidence, but is directed against the inferences which the court drew from them, raising questions of the burden of proof and sufficiency of the evidence.

The rule of burden of proof in such cases is so well established and was so fully discussed by the learned trial judge, that elaboration is not necessary. Stated very briefly, it is this: In an attack upon a patent, the patentee may stand on the grant of letters patent, which is prima facie evidence of the patent's validity. In the beginning, no further burden is imposed upon him. The burden of overcoming this evidence of validity by proof of the patent's invalidity because of prior public use and sale, devolves upon the one attacking the patent. This he must sustain by evidence so clear that it leaves no room for doubt. Coffin v. Ogden, 85 U.S. 120, 124, 21 L.Ed. 821; Miller v. Handley (C.C.) 61 F. 101; Interurban Co. v. Westinghouse Co., 186 Fed 166, 108 C.C.A. 298; Morgan v. Daniels, 153 U.S. 120, 14 Sup.Ct. 772, 38 L.Ed. 657. If he proves sale of the patented device and use by the public more than two years before the application, by evidence of this character, the statute relieves him from proving the inventor's intention thereby to abandon his invention to the public, and establishes an inference of abandonment of the invention before the grant of the patent, which, unless successfully controverted by the patentee, invalidates the patent subsequently...