Ceramic Process Co. v. Cincinnati Advertising Products Co.

28 F. Supp. 794, 42 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 269, 1939 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2427
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Ohio
DecidedJuly 7, 1939
Docket1012, 5090
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 28 F. Supp. 794 (Ceramic Process Co. v. Cincinnati Advertising Products Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ceramic Process Co. v. Cincinnati Advertising Products Co., 28 F. Supp. 794, 42 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 269, 1939 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2427 (S.D. Ohio 1939).

Opinion

NEVIN, District Judge.

These two cases were heard together. Case No. 1012 is a suit in equity for patent infringement. No. 5090 is an action at law for a monetary recovery for royalties which plaintiff therein claims are due it under a license contract.

The Ceramic Process Company, one of the plaintiffs in equity suit No. 1012, is the owner of the legal title to Scott Reissue Patent No. 16,048, the patent in suit.

Solar Laboratories is the exclusive licensee under Reissue Patent No. 16,048 insofar as the same is applicable to stenciling on glass articles. It is joined as a plaintiff in Case No. 1012. It appears as the sole plaintiff in the action at law, No. 5090, because it alone has the right to collect and recover for any past infringement of the letters patent in suit by reason of the stenciling on any glass product, if such infringement there was.

While defendant made some claim to the effect that both actions could not be maintained, it was, nevertheless, agreed by the parties in a written stipulation filed on April 30, 1938, that “without prejudice to defendant’s contention that both causes of action can not be maintained by plaintiffs” the two cases should be tried “jointly at the same hearing by the court without a jury”. It was also agreed, in the record at the time of trial, that the evidence presented should be considered as applicable to both cases and to each case respectively.

It is further stipulated by the parties (Ex. 12) as follows: that

“3. The plaintiff, Ceramic Process Company, is and was at the time of the filing of the Bill of Complaint herein a Pennsylvania corporation and the sole owner of the legal title of U. S. Letters Patents in suit, Reissue No. 16,048, dated April 21, 1925; that
“4. The plaintiff, Solar Laboratories, is and was at the time, of the filing of the Bill of Complaint a Pennsylvania corporation *796 and the exclusive licensee under said U. S. Letters Patents in suit No. 16,048, dated April 21, 1925, for the field of decorating glass articles, and is and was possessed of the exclusive right to utilize the process of said patent for the decoration of glass articles, together with the right to sue for and collect all past damage, profit, or reasonable royalty for past infringement of said Letters Patents; that
“5. The license contract identified in paragraph 13 of plaintiff’s interrogatories to defendant is a true- and correct copy of the license contract entered into between the defendant and the Phoenix Glass Company on or about the twenty-sixth day of June 1935, and is the contract referred to in paragraph 5 in the Bill of Complaint and paragraph 5 of the Answer in the suit, Solar Laboratories vs. Cincinnati Advertising Products Company, a correct copy of this contract being attached to this stipulation; that
“6. At the time of the signing of said contract, to wit, June 16, 1935, Phoenix Glass Company was in the possession of the right, granted by the plaintiff, Ceramic Process Company, through the plaintiff, Solar Laboratories, to said Phoenix Glass Company, to grant the license to defendant, Cincinnati Advertising Products Company dated June 26, 1935 specifically -identified in the next preceding paragraph; that
“7. On or about the tenth day of October 1936, the plaintiff, Solar Laboratories, became the owner by assignment from Phoenix Glass Company of all of the right, title, and interest of Phoenix Glass Company in and to the license contract between it and the defendant, the Cincinnati Advertising Products Company, dated June 26, 1935 and specifically hereinbefore identified in paragraph 5; together with the right to maintain any and all causes of action for breach thereof and to collect damages for said breach; that
“8. On or about the tenth day of October 1936, counsel for plaintiff wrote a letter to defendant of which Exhibit 10 hereto attached is a true copy, and to which defendant’s counsel sent an answer on December 11, 1936, of which latter letter Exhibit 11 is a true copy; that
“9. Between June 26, 1935 and the time of filing of the Bill of Complaint herein defendant has consistently used in commercial production (but not exclusively) . a glass decorating process wherein a ceramic color comprising a powdered substance known commercially as a frit, and a coloring matter commercially known as a coloring oxide, was commingled with an oily vehicle or medium containing say two-thirds (%) United States Varnish #209, and one-third (%) Balsam Copaiba, mixed in proportions of two pounds of the ceramic color to ten ounces of the vehicle, which was then forced through a silk screen of fine mesh, such as a No. 8 or a No. 16 screen by means of a squeegee or other means, after which the decoration so applied was fused on to the glass.”

While, as before indicated, defendant “contends that the plaintiffs in the law case and in the equity case can maintain only one of these cases”, the point was not urged nor stressed by defendant.

The court is of qpinion that plaintiffs can maintain both of these actions.

Case No. 1012 in Equity.

In this action plaintiffs charge infringement. They pray for an injunction; for an accounting and damages. They ask that the damages “be multiplied three-fold because of the aggravated character of the infringement” complained of, and for their costs herein expended.

Defendant, in its answer, sets up the usual defenses of invalidity and non-infringement, alleging prior use and anticipation. Defendant asserts that all the steps of the process described in the Scott Patent in suit were old in the ceramic art; that a number of patents illustrate the prior art and that these are put in (Rec. p. 24) “to show the court to what this patent is to be limited if its validity is to be upheld”; that all that the patentees did was merely to exercise what was to be expected of those skilled in the art; that “there was-not an iota of invention as far as the glass business is concerned”, and that (Rec. p. 25) “We are not interested in whether or not the patent is valid for enamel sheet metal work, but certainly we are going to contend that if the patent is to be sustained it must be limited to that art”.

Validity.

The patent in suit, No. 16,048 (Ex. 1), is a reissue patent to Herbert Hamilton Scott and George McIntosh Scott, both of London, England. The original patent (Ex. 2) issued to the same parties is No. 1,-516,065.

Defendant contends that the reissue patent is invalid because it was not reissued *797 in accordance with or for the reasons set forth in the statute providing for reissue. R.S. § 4916, U.S.C.A., Title 35, § 64. It is the claim of defendant that the original Scott patent, No.

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28 F. Supp. 794, 42 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 269, 1939 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2427, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ceramic-process-co-v-cincinnati-advertising-products-co-ohsd-1939.