Caterpillar Tractor Co. v. Reinharts, Inc.

21 F. Supp. 900, 1938 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2473
CourtDistrict Court, D. Nevada
DecidedJanuary 21, 1938
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 21 F. Supp. 900 (Caterpillar Tractor Co. v. Reinharts, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Nevada primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Caterpillar Tractor Co. v. Reinharts, Inc., 21 F. Supp. 900, 1938 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2473 (D. Nev. 1938).

Opinion

NORCROSS, District Judge.

To plaintiff’s memorandum of costs and disbursements filed upon entry of amended final decree, following receipt of mandate from the Circuit Court of Appeals, defendant filed objections to certain items thereof. The costs so claimed total the sum of $9,948.97. The objections relate to items totaling $8,480.36. The items objected to include seven models, the cost of one being $6,042.85, and the other six totaling $393.50; expressing models $359.71 and insurance while in transit $359.71; thirty-six charts, at $39.55 each; totaling $1,423.80.

The mandate of the Circuit Court of Appeals modified the interlocutory decree of this court, appealed from, “so as to hold claim 5 of the Norelius patent, No. 1,315,-653, invalid and, therefore, not infringed, and, as so modified, the said decree be, and hereby is, affirmed with costs in favor of the appellee and against the appellant.” Reinharts Inc. v. Caterpillar Tractor Co., 9 Cir., 85 F.2d 628, certiorari denied 58 S.Ct. 13, 82 L.Ed. -.

The objections to the charges for three of the models, including the one most expensive, are made ■ “upon the grounds that said models are not made under any order of ‘Court and were wholly unnecessary to the proper understanding by the Court of the construction of the tractor or tractors alleged to infringe. There was at all times available to the Court the actual tractors alleged to infringe and which were assembled and dissembled for the benefit of the Court and the Court was able to secure full information as to the construction of, said alleged infringing tractors from the actual tractors without resort to the models in question. Said models were but duplications of the actual tractors and hence wholly unnecessary to a complete understanding thereof by the Court.”

The objections to the charges for the other four models are made “on the grounds that these are models of structures fully and clearly shown and described in patents which offered a full disclosure of the mechanism in question and hence said models were, entirely unnecessary because the Court was certainly fully able to understand the structure from a reading of the patent disclosures.”

“The item of charge for the 36 charts, $1423.80 is objected to for the reason that the two full size tractors involved in the suit were fully and completely available to the Court at all times during the trial and the charts were mere duplications thereof, useful only for argument and not necessary for illustration or proof. The item is further objected to for the reason that if any charts were considered necessary by Counsel, simple and inexpensive ones could have been used with the same force and effect as were the more elaborate and expensive charts prepared by plaintiff.”

At the outset it is apparent from a reference to cases cited that plaintiff’s claims for cost allowances are greatly in excess of those appearing in any reported patent infringement suit and that the law respecting the questions of allowance for models and charts, as here presented, is not well settled by decisions of courts dealing with a state [901]*901of facts similar to those presented in this case.

It appears to be conceded by plaintiff that any allowance for the items objected to is entirely a matter in the discretion of the court. That question should first be determined whether the court has discretion to make such allowances as costs in a case of the character under consideration.

From the opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals of this Circuit in Walker v. Lee, 9 Cir., 71 F.2d 622, 623, is quoted the following: “Appellant’s next objection is to items of ‘Miscellaneous Disbursements’ amounting to $243.21, for ‘photographs, photostats, enlargements, charts, physical exhibits, private express charges,’ etc. It is claimed by appellant that these costs were not taxable under section 983, U.S.R.S. (28 U.S.C.A. § 830), citing Wooster v. Handy (C.C.) 23 F. 49 [23 Blatchf. 112]; Kelly v. Springfield Ry. Co. (C.C.) 83 F. 183. These decisions were both by the trial court and not by a court on appeal. The matter was considered by the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit in Appliance Investment Co. v. Western Elec. Co., 61 F.2d 752, where the costs of ‘providing simplified drawings for use in making more clear at the trial the drawings of patents having a bearing on the issues’ were held allowable costs as falling within the provisions of section 983, U.S.R.S. (28 U.S.C.A. § 830), as ‘copies of papers necessarily obtained for use on trials.’ ”

The case of Wooster v. Handy, cited supra in the excerpt from the opinion in the Walker Case, is deserving of some special reference, in that in the opinion in the Wooster Case, the case of Hussey v. Bradley, 5 Blatchf. 210, 12 Fed.Cas. 1059, 1060, No. 6946a, is referred to as holding “that the expense of copies of models in the patent-office * * * might be allowed for, but that the expense of other models and machines was not allowable.”

From the decision in the Hussey v. Bradley Case is quoted the following excerpt: “The expenses of a certified or sworn copy of a model from the patent office might, under some circumstances, be properly allowed; and, as a general rule, the expense of procuring other models or machines ought not tb be taxed.”

A holding that “as a general rule” certain characters of “models or machines ought not to be taxed” is quite different from saying that such expense “was not allowable.”

From the opinion in Barber-Coleman v. Withnell, 28 F.2d 543, 544, D.C., Mass., is quoted the following:

“It has been settled that costs in equity proceedings are not restricted to the items specified in the statute (R.S. § 983; U.S. Comp.Stats. § 1624, 28 U.S.C.A. § 830), but may be allowed in the discretion of the
court, unless controlled by statute or rule (Ex parte Peterson, 253 U.S. 300, 317, 40 S.Ct. 543. [549], 64 L.Ed. 919; Newton v. Consolidated Gas Co., 265 U.S. 78, at page 83, 44 S.Ct. 481 [482], 68 L.Ed. 909). There is no statute or rule affecting the present case. * * *
“I can see no difference in principle between plans of land used in connection with deeds, and drawings used to clarify a patent. In Victor Talking Mach. Co. v. Starr Piano Co. (C.C.A.) 281 F. 60, at page 66, expenditures for motion pictures and photographs of cutting tools in operation were held taxable, because ‘necessary to enable the trial court to understand the processes and to make a proper record for review.’ 281 F. 66. * * *
“To restrict the allowance of such costs to drawings and photographs which were absolutely necessary seems to me too narrow a rule. The expense of those which were admitted in evidence and furnished real assistance to the court in getting at the essential facts of a case ought in justice to be taxable.”

See, also, Appliance Inv. Co. v. Western Electric Co., 2 Cir., 61 F.2d 752, 756; Victor Talking Machine Co. v.

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Related

Reinharts, Inc. v. Caterpillar Tractor Co.
99 F.2d 648 (Ninth Circuit, 1938)

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