Esta Co. v. Burke

257 F. 743, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 817
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Pennsylvania
DecidedMay 8, 1919
DocketNo. 1861
StatusPublished

This text of 257 F. 743 (Esta Co. v. Burke) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Esta Co. v. Burke, 257 F. 743, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 817 (E.D. Pa. 1919).

Opinion

THOMPSON, District Judge.

The plaintiff is a corporation of the state of Massachusetts, having offices and doing business at Boston, Mass., and the defendant is a citizen and an inhabitant of Philadelphia, Pa., in the Eastern district of Pennsylvania.

The bill sets up that the plaintiff is the owner, through assignments, of patent No. 1,167,619, issued to Esten Beeler January 11, 1916, upon an application filed June 27, 1914. for improvements in bubble-making machines. The object of the invention is to produce bubbles in large quantities of a very dry nature in any size desired for display and theatrical illusions or other purposes. The single claim is for:

“The combination in a bubble-making machine of a tank or suitable container having a false bottom with a plurality of small boles therein, means for introducing compressed air beneath said false bottom, and a solution of bubble-making properties maintained above such false bottom, all substantially as set forth.”

The plaintiff has used the invention embodied in the letters patent in a device or apparatus for humidifying the air supply to internal combustion engines, marketed under the name “Esta water auxiliator.”

The plaintiff is also the owner by assignment of a trade-mark for humidifiers for internal combustion engines, registered September 25, 1917, consisting of the word “Auxiliator.”

The bill charges infringement of the plaintiff’s patent, and of its registered trade-mark, and unfair competition in trade, in that, as alleged, the defendant has made, used, and sold humidifiers for internal combustion engines, made according to and employing and containing the plaintiff’s patented invention and improvement, and used in con[744]*744nection therewith the word “Ox-iliator,” which the plaintiff claims is in such near resemblance to its trade-mark “Auxiliator” as to be calculated to deceive the purchasing public, and to cause confusion in the trade, and to lead the public, which had become familiar with the plaintiff’s trade-mark in connection with the same character and quality of devices, to believe that, in purchasing the alleged infringing devices of the defendant, it was really purchasing devices manufactured and sold by the plaintiff, and that the defendant is continuing his unlawful acts, and threatens to make, use, and sell infringing devices in large quantities, and to use thereon and in connection therewith its simulation of plaintiff’s trade-mark, and to take advantage of and benefit by the trade, reputation, and standing of the plaintiff.

The bill charges more specifically that the defendant has employed and used extracts from a certificate of test made by the technical committee of the Automobile Club of America of the plaintiff’s “Esta water auxiliator” in connection with his advertisements of his alleged infringing device; that for the purposé of unfairly competing with and injuring the business of the plaintiff he has copied in the printed leaflet of instructions, which he supplies to his customers, the printed leaflet of instructions to users of the plaintiff’s devices, which it had prepared with great care and expense; that the defendant, prior to his alleged career of infringement of the patent and of the trade-mark, and of methods of unfair business competition, had negotiations with the plaintiff in the endeavor to secure the sales agency for the plaintiff’s devices, and is taking advantage of information disclosed by the plaintiff,' in seeking to employ the plaintiff’s agents, dealers, and distributors, and is unlawfully interfering with and injuring plaintiff’s business; That he is marketing, and threatens to continue to market-an inferior article in the infringing device -complained of, employing poor Workmanship and material, and at a lower price than that at which plaintiff is able to sell its product.

The plaintiff moves for a preliminary injunction upon each of the three grounds set out in its bill, namely, infringement of its patent, infringement of its registered trade-mark, and unfair competition in trade.

From the injunction affidavits, and the exhibits of plaintiff’s device and the defendant’s device, it is apparent that the two devices are practically identical in their means of supplying humidified air for internal combustion engines for automobiles.

The plaintiff is met at the outset of his case, however, with the claim of the defendant that neither the Esta water auxiliator nor the Burke air moistener, or ox-iliator, is made or operated in accordance with the Beeler patent, and that the Beeler claim is anticipated by devices of the prior art.

[1] Without going into detail in discussing the defenses as to the patent in suit, it is sufficient to say that the prior patents cited by the defendant raise such reasonable doubt of the validity of the patent in suit, and that the application of the patent to either the Esta water auxiliator or the Burke ox-iliator is sufficiently doubtful, to deny the plaintiff the right to a preliminary injunction. Long Arm System Co. v. [745]*745New York Shipbuilding Co. (C. C.) 207 Fed. 955; Williams v. Breitling Metal-Ware Mfg. Co., 77 Fed. 285, 23 C. C. A. 171.

This rule applies with greater force because the application of the invention to humidifiers for internal combustion engines is of but recent date, and its validity as an invention for soap bubble making machines has, as far as appears, never been adjudicated, nor had such continued public acquiescence as to raise a presumption of validity.

The plaintiff’s right to a preliminary injunction for infringement of the Beeler patent was not asserted with apparent confidence at the argument, nor in the plaintiff’s brief, although its counsel strongly urged its right to a preliminary injunction to restrain infringement of its trade-mark and unfair competition. Under the charge of infringement of the registered trade-mark “Auxiliator,” the affidavits present a strong case of the intentional use by the defendant of a close imitation in adopting for his device the word “Ox-Iliator.” The relations of the parties prior to the commencement of the defendant’s manufacture and sale of his device, through which he gained inside confidential knowledge of the plaintiff’s business methods, its sales agencies, and the merits of its device, his reference in his advertising to and his quotation of the official test of the technical committee of the Automobile Club of America, known as “Certified Test No. 36,” and, in a less degree, his copying in extenso the plaintiff’s printed leaflet of instructions to users of the plaintiff’s device, point to an intention upon his part to unfairly appropriate to himself the merits of the plaintiff’s device and the advantages of what the plaintiff had accomplished in its business.

[2] As to unfair competition, however, the plaintiff has neither set up in its bill nor proved the jurisdictional facts necessary for relief. While it has set up and shown diversity of citizenship, jurisdiction in a case of unfair competition is further conditioned upon the matter in controversy exceeding the value of $3,000, and the plaintiff has neither alleged in the bill nor proved that jurisdictional fact. The requisite amount in controversy is as essential as diversity of citizenship, and not having been averred, in accordance with equity rule 25, nor proved in the moving affidavits, the court, under section 24 of the Judicial Code, is without jurisdiction to pass upon the question.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
257 F. 743, 1919 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 817, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/esta-co-v-burke-paed-1919.