Willard v. Union Tool Co.

• Decision Date: 16 November 1925
• Docket Number: No. 4567.,4567.
• Citation: 8 F.2d 264
• Parties: WILLARD et al. v. UNION TOOL CO.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

8 F.2d 264 (1925)

WILLARD et al. v. UNION TOOL CO.

No. 4567.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

October 19, 1925.

Rehearing Denied November 16, 1925.

G. Benton Wilson and Hamer H. Jamieson, both of Los Angeles, Cal., for appellants.

Henry S. MacKay, Frederick S. Lyon, Leonard S. Lyon, and Henry S. Richmond, all of Los Angeles, Cal., and Carey Van Fleet, of San Francisco, Cal., for appellee.

Before GILBERT, HUNT, and RUDKIN, Circuit Judges.

HUNT, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from an order denying a motion for a supplemental decree to extend an injunction which had been issued in an equity suit wherein Willard and Wilson were plaintiffs and Union Tool Company was defendant, for the infringement of letters patent No. 1,064,270, for improvements in well-boring apparatus, and injunction and accounting. Willard v. Union Tool Co., 253 F. 48, 166 C. C. A. 646.

In that case the District Court held that all the claims of the patent were void and dismissed the suit, but upon appeal this court, while affirming the decree dismissing the suit as to claims 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, reversed it as to the other claims, and remanded the cause for further proceedings. Our opinion was based upon the view that the contest was not one between two rival patentees, but was between the owners of the patent and persons admitted to be infringers if the claims of the patent were sustainable. In other words, decision turned upon the question of who was the inventor of the device included in the claims of the patent.

After remand, disclaimer on claims 1 to 5 was filed, and interlocutory decree was entered, finding claims 6 to 9 valid, and enjoining the defendant from infringing those claims, and referring the matter to a special master for an accounting. The special master sustained the objections of the defendant to the inclusion in the accounting, sales of a modified form of the devices, a multiple bushing, made by the defendant, as within the intendment of the decree, and reported accordingly.

Plaintiffs also instituted a contempt proceeding, founded upon the theory that defendant was in contempt in manufacturing and selling a rotary drilling device alleged to be covered by claims 6, 7, 8, and 9 of the patent. Upon the contempt hearing Judge Bledsoe said the issue was whether or not the then existing injunction covered a multiple piece bushing, and held that all the devices mentioned in the interlocutory decree were single piece bushings; that there never had been a...