William Healy v. Sea Gull Specialty Company

• Decision Date: 17 May 1915
• Docket Number: No. 253,253
• Citation: William Healy v. Sea Gull Specialty Company, 237 U.S. 479, 35 S.Ct. 658, 59 L.Ed. 1056 (1915)
• Parties: WILLIAM P. HEALY and the Healy Box Corporation, 1 Appts., v. SEA GULL SPECIALTY COMPANY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

237 U.S. 479

35 S.Ct. 658

59 L.Ed. 1056

WILLIAM P. HEALY and the Healy Box Corporation,¹ Appts.,

v SEA GULL SPECIALTY COMPANY.

No. 253.

Argued and submitted May 3, 1915.

Decided May 17, 1915.

Messrs. Charles Rosen and Henry B. Gayley for appellants.

Messrs. Randolph Barton, Jr., and James E. Zunts for appellee.

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a bill in equity, brought by the appellants, alleging that Healy is the owner of patents for improvements in boxes and machines for making boxes, and that the Healy Box Corporation is the grantee of the exclusive right to make and use the machines, and to make, use, and sell the boxes containing the patented improvements. The bill next alleges that the defendant is infringing the patents, and will continue to do so unless restrained. Then, anticipating a defense, it sets forth a license to the defendant, a breach of its conditions, and a termination of the same. It adds that the license contained a stipulation that in case of any suit for infringement the measure of recovery should be the same as the royalty agreed upon for the use of the inventions, and another for the return of the machines let to the defendant while the license was in force. The bill prays for an injunction against making, using, or selling the boxes or machines, for an account of profits received by reason of the infringement, for triple the damages measured as above stated, and for the surrender of the machines. The jurisdiction depended upon this being a case arising under the patent laws, and the district court, thinking that it was merely a matter of contract, dismissed the bill. In our opinion its decision was wrong.

It may be that the reasoning of The Fair v. Kohler Die & Specialty Co. 228 U. S. 22, 57 L. ed. 716, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 410, is more consistent with that of Mr. Justice Bradley's dissent in Hartell v. Tilghman, 99 U. S. 547, 25 L. ed. 357 (a decision since explained and limited, White v. Rankin, 144 U. S. 628, 36 L. ed. 569, 12 Sup. Ct. Rep. 768), than with that of the majority, but it is the deliberate judgment of the court and governs this case. As stated there, the plaintiff is absolute master of what jurisdiction he will appeal to; and if he goes to the district court for infringement of a patent, unless the claim is frivolous or a pretense, the district court will have jurisdiction on that ground, even though the course of the subsequent pleadings reveals other more serious disputes....