Duplex Printing-Press Co. v. Campbell Printing-Press & Manuf'g Co.

69 F. 250, 16 C.C.A. 220, 1895 U.S. App. LEXIS 2391
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJuly 2, 1895
DocketNo. 298
StatusPublished
Cited by30 cases

This text of 69 F. 250 (Duplex Printing-Press Co. v. Campbell Printing-Press & Manuf'g Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Duplex Printing-Press Co. v. Campbell Printing-Press & Manuf'g Co., 69 F. 250, 16 C.C.A. 220, 1895 U.S. App. LEXIS 2391 (6th Cir. 1895).

Opinion

TAFT, Circuit Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court.

This Is an appeal by the defendant below from an order granting a preliminary injunction pending the healing of a bill in equity to restrain the infringement of letters patent. The Campbell Printing-Press & Manufacturing Company owns letters patent No. 291,521, issued January 8,1884, to Wellington P. Kidder for a printing machine, and No. 876,053, issued in January, 1888, to John H. Stone-mete, for a web printing machine. The averment of the bill was that the Duplex Printing-Press Company, the defendant, of Battle Creek, Mich., was manufacturing- a printing press which infringed three of the claims of the Kidder patent and six of the claims of the Stonemetz patent In an equity suit brought by the same complainant against Marden and Kowell in the United States circuit court for the district of Massachusetts, that court held that a printing press which had been sold by the Duplex Printing-Press Company to the defendants therein infringed the first, second, and seventh claims of the Kidder patent and the twelfth claim of the Stonemetz patent, on a full hearing of the issues raised. 64 Fed. 782. The Duplex Printing-Press Company had charge of the litigation for the defendant therein, and conducted it by its counsel. The record and evidence in that cause accompanied one of the affidavits filed in support of the motion for a preliminary injunction in the court below. The injunction was resisted below by counter affidavits, and the exhibition of patents, two English and one French, for printing presses, which were not introduced in the Massachusetts case, and were only discovered after the decree in that court had been rendered. As soon as the Massachusetts decree was entered, the defendant company, which was engaged in manufacturing the alleged infringement, made a mortgage of ail its assets, real and personal, of whatever kind, to secure an indebtedness aggregating more than §100,-000, to its directors and other persons intimately associated with its management The action of the court below is shown in the following order and memorandum filed by the court at the same time.

"This cause coming on to be hoard upon the bill of complaint, affidavits on the part ol' complainant, the exhibits referred to therein, and on the record of pleadings, proceedings, and printed record of evidence and exhibits in the case of the same complainant against Marden and Howell in the United Stater circuit court for the district of Massachusetts, and upon the order to show cause why an injunction should not be granted, and affidavits, and patents and exhibits and models referred to therein, on the part of the defendant, and after hearing counsel for the respective parties, it is ordered (for the reasons set forth in the memorandum filed by the court) that an injunction issue restraining the defendant from infringement of the first, secoud, and seventh claims of the Kidder patent in suit, and the twelfth elaim of the Stonemetz [252]*252patent In suit, or either of them, until the further order of the court, but that the said injunction he stayed pending’ an appeal to the circuit court of appeals, but only so far as the same would affect the making, shipping, or selling of the two completed and five uncompleted machines now at the defendant’s works, or in process of construction by the defendant, upon the filing of a .bond by the defendant in the penal sum of §7,000 to answer to the complainant for any damages or profits accruing by reason of the making or sale of said seven machines.”

The memorandum filed by the court below is as follows:

“The injunction is granted in this case on the record in the Massachusetts case, and the newly-discovered evidence submitted on both sides, and after hearing counsel for both parties, and the exhibits submitted on behalf of the defendant. This disposition of the motion for the injunction is made with a view of enabling the court of appeals to review and finally determine on their merits all the questions between the parties before this court, unembarrassed by the question of the exercise of the discretion of the circuit court, and the injunction is suspended so far as the sale of the two machines already completed and the five now in process of construction is concerned, on the defendant giving bond of §7,000.”

We do not fully understand the meaning of the learned judge’s memorandum in the court below. The motion for a preliminary injunction necessarily involved the exercise by him of a sound judicial discretion in granting or withholding it. By no action of his could he enable this court finally to determine all the questions between the parties to the action, because it is not within the proper province of this court to do so on an appeal from an order granting a preliminary irijunction. This is settled by the decision in Blount v. Societe Anonyme, etc., 6 U. S. App. 335, 3 C. C. A. 455, 53 Fed. 98, where Mr. Justice Jackson, speaking for this court, discusses the proper scope of action by a circuit court of appeals upon an appeal from a preliminary injunction under the seventh section of the circuit court of appeals act. We are to consider the correctness of the order from the same standpoint as that occupied by the court granting it, and if we find, after a consideration of the grounds presented to that court for its action, that its legal discretion to grant or withhold the order was not improvidently exercised, we should not disturb its action. The judgment of the circuit court of Massachusetts is entitled to the same consideration in this court, as a reason for granting the preliminary injunction, as it had in the court below. American Paper Pail & Box Co. v. National Folding Box & Paper Co., 1 U. S. App. 283, 2 C. C. A. 165, 51 Fed. 229. Upon a final hearing upon the merits, it would be different; for then considerations of comity might properly have weight with the court below, which we should not hesitate, as an appellate court, to disregard in finally settling the rights of the parties. The language of the memorandum leads us to suppose that the order made by the court was with the expectation that this court would on the present hearing rer.der such a judgment as to make a further hearing on the merits below unnecessary, and was; therefore, made to provide a status quo for the parties during the six months within which it was hoped the judgment' of this court could be secured. This erroneous view of the power and duty of this court, upon which the order was based, makes it necessary for us in this particular case to [253]*253consider the motion for preliminary injunction de novo, and, because of the failure of the court below to exercise the proper discretion, to exercise it ourselves, and make the order which should have been made. The patent of Kidder was for a printing press in which the printing is-done directly from type set in a flat bed, as distinguished from those presses In which curved stereotyped plates are used, taken from the type. In flatbed presses, either the bed may move with the paper under the impression cylinder, or the bed may be stationary, and the cylinder be movable or locomotive. Flatbed presses are better for newspapers with small editions, because such newspapers do not need the great rapidity of the stereotype presses, and may thus avoid the additional expense incident thereto. A press is said to be a, perfecting press when, at the same time, it prints on both sides of the paper. It is a web press when it receives and prints upon a continuous web or roll of paper as it is unwound, and not upon cut sheets. Before Kidder, there were web perfecting stereotyped presses.

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Bluebook (online)
69 F. 250, 16 C.C.A. 220, 1895 U.S. App. LEXIS 2391, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/duplex-printing-press-co-v-campbell-printing-press-manufg-co-ca6-1895.