Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Rubber Tire Wheel Co.

164 F. 869, 1908 U.S. App. LEXIS 4697
CourtU.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern Ohio
DecidedJuly 18, 1908
DocketNo. 6,280
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 164 F. 869 (Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Rubber Tire Wheel Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Southern Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. v. Rubber Tire Wheel Co., 164 F. 869, 1908 U.S. App. LEXIS 4697 (circtsdoh 1908).

Opinion

LURTON, Circuit Judge.

In a suit in this court in which the Rubber Tire Wheel Company and the Consolidated Rubber Tire Company sought to enjoin the present complainant, the Goodyear Tire Rubber Company, from making or selling rubber tires which infringed the Grant patent, No. 554,675, it was adjudged that the Grant patent was invalid and that the bill of complaint should be dismissed. The opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals, directing the dismissal of the bill for the reason stated/was reported in 116 Fed. 363, 53 C. C. A. 583. Since that decree the Goodyear Company has continued to make rubber tires at its factory in Ohio under the protection of that decree and to sell them to all who would buy.

This bill alleges that since that decree and under its protection it has sold large quántities of these tires to the firm of Jose Alvarez & Co., doing business at Havana, in the Republic of Cuba. It alleges that the defendant companies, through their agent, one Manning, residing in Havana, have wrongfully interfered with this business by proceeding against the said Jose Alvarez & Co. in the courts of Cuba, to stop that firm from buying or selling the product of complainants, alleging such products to be an infringement of the said patent, and have actually secured process from the Cuban courts which operates as an injunction, and have caused a proceeding, both criminal and civil, to be instituted against Jose Alvarez for an unlawful sale of goods which infringe the patent rights of the said Rubber Tire and Consolidated Companies.

The object of the bill is to enjoin the defendants from any interference with the customers of complainant in the Republic of Cuba, [871]*871by compelling them through a decree in personam to desist from interfering with the business of Jose Alvarez & Co., so far as that business is connected with the sale of rubber tires made by complainant under protection of the former decree between the parties now before the court. Upon the filing of the bill 1 made a restraining order, as prayed, to continue until notice could be given and an application be made and heard for an injunction pendente lite. Such notice lias been given, and the case is now heard upon such motion; the application being based upon the bill and exhibits, supported by affidavits, and resisted by counter affidavits and exhibits. I shall content myself with a brief memorandum indicating the trend of my thought and my conclusion.

1. That the defendants in this suit are bound by the final judgment in the former suit is not controverted. One effect of that judgment is that, whether that decision was right or wrong, the Goodyear Company is entitled to make and sell rubber tires free from all interference from the defendant companies by virtue of the Grant patent. Another is that the defendants, as the defeated parties in that suit, may be enjonied or restrained from interfering with the business of the successful party by bringing suits based on the same patent against customers of the latter. Kessler v. Eldred, 206 U. S. 285, 27 Sup. Ct. 611, 51 E. Ed. 1065.

2. This court, as a court of equity having jurisdiction over the persons of the defendants, may control them, by decree in personam, from doing any act within or without the jurisdiction, at home or abroad, by bringing suit or otherwise, which shall be an interference with the right of the complainant to prosecute its business without interference with the defendants by virtue of the Grant patent. Cole v. Cunningham, 133 U. S. 107, 10 Sup. Ct. 269, 33 L. Ed. 538; Penn v. Lord Baltimore, 1 Vesey, Sr. 444; Portarlington v. Selby, 3 Mylne & K. 104, 106; Story, Eq. Jur. §§ 899, 900. That this power extends to the restraining of proceedings under the Grant patent in the courts of Cuba, whenever the court has jurisdiction of the persons of the parties, there is doubt. The cases cited above are clear. Mr. Justice Story, cited above, thus states the principles:

“But, although the courts of one country have no authority to stay proceedings in the courts of another, they have an undoubted authority to control all persons and things within their own territorial limits. When, therefore, both parties to a suit in a foreign country are resident within the territorial limits of another country, the courts of equity in the latter may act in personam upon those parties, and direct them, by injunction, to proceed no further in said suit. In such a case these courts act upon acknowledged principles of public law in regard to jurisdiction. They do not pretend to direct or control the foreign court; but, without regard to the situation of the subject-matter of the dispute, they consider the equities between the parries, anil decree in personam according to those equities, and enforce obedience to their decrees by process in personam. * * * It is now held that, whenever the parties are resident within a country, the courts of that country have full authority to act upon them personally with respect to the subject of suits in a foreign country, as the ends of justice may require, and with that view to order them to take any steps and proceedings in any other court of justice, whether in the same country or in any foreign country.” 133 U. S. 118, 119, 10 Sup. Ct. 273, 33 L. Ed. 538.

[872]*872These propositions are incontrovertible, and, if it be true that the proceeding, in Cuba is based upon the Grant patent, it is clear that an injunction should be allowed as prayed. But this is the point upon which the right must turn: Is the proceeding in Cuba of which complaint is made based upon the Grant patent? The defendants' counsel deny, and say that the Cuban proceedings are brought upon a Cuban grant founded upon the United States patent to Grant. I am quite clear that, if this is true, this court must stay its hand and permit the Cuban courts to determine whether the Cuban grant has or has not been infringed by the sale of tires made in this country under the protection of the decree referred to.

Boesch v. Graff, 133 U. S. 697, 10 Sup. Ct. 378, 33 L. Ed. 787, seems to be controlling. In that case it appeared that an invention was first patented in Germany and then in this country. In a suit upon the German patent in Germany it was held that a certain producer was not affected by the patent, because he had prepared to make the product before the inventor applied for his patent. The American suit was upon the American patent. The defense was that the infringing articles were made in Germany by the person held by the German courts not to be affected by the German patent. But it was held that goods purchased in a foreign country from a person authorized there to sell them cannot be imported into this country and sold here without a license from the American patent-ee. But it is to be noticed that the American patent held to be infringed by goods free of the German patent for the same invention was an independent patent granted by the United States for the invention previously patented in Germany. In respect to the basis for the infringement suit pending in Cuba the bill avers that it is—

“based upon-letters patent to A. W. Grant, No.

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164 F. 869, 1908 U.S. App. LEXIS 4697, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/goodyear-tire-rubber-co-v-rubber-tire-wheel-co-circtsdoh-1908.