Lilliston Implement Co. v. E. L. Caldwell & Sons, Inc.

212 F. Supp. 413, 136 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 543, 1962 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5576
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Texas
DecidedDecember 5, 1962
DocketCiv. A. No. 2094
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 212 F. Supp. 413 (Lilliston Implement Co. v. E. L. Caldwell & Sons, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Lilliston Implement Co. v. E. L. Caldwell & Sons, Inc., 212 F. Supp. 413, 136 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 543, 1962 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5576 (S.D. Tex. 1962).

Opinion

GARZA, District Judge.

This is a patent suit in which the owners of the patent and the exclusive licensees are suing the Defendant, not only for patent infringement, but also for unfair competition and false marking of a patent number.

There is no question that this Court has jurisdiction of the parties and of the subject-matter of this suit under the appropriate statutes of the United States.

The patent in suit is United States Patent No. 2,994,387, issued on August 1, 1961, on an application filed June 12, 1961, by Charles L. Lehman and Alvin H. Lehman, and is a patent on a rotary cultivator making use of gangs of rotary hoes that not only cultivate over a row of growing crops, but also adjacent to each side of the growing crops. The patentees call it a “onee-over all-over” cultivating machine. The patentees, Charles L. Lehman and Alvin H. Lehman, as co-inventors, filed several applications before the Patent Office, seeking a patent on their rotary cultivator. On April 1,1958, the patentees filed two applications with the Patent Office, being Applications Serial Numbers 725,640 and 725,641. These first applications were abandoned and the patentees then filed Application Serial No. 800,304 on March 18, 1959, which said application they designated as a continuation in part of the two abandoned applications filed April 1,1958. On September 7, 1960, they filed Application Serial No. 54,468 which dealt with the same type of cultivator, except a different phase of the same. They finally filed their Application Serial No. 113,993 on June 12, 1961, which was a continuation of the applications filed March 18, 1959, and September 7,1960, and it was on this last application that United States Patent No. 2,994,387 was issued to the Lehmans. The patent in suit, therefore, has a large file history in the Patent Office, all of which file wrappers have been introduced as evidence in this suit.

The patentees, Charles L. and Alvin H. Lehman, assigned the patent to the Plain[415]*415tiff Lehman Equipment Co., and the Lehman Equipment Co. gave an exclusive license to Lilliston Implement Company, a Georgia corporation, for an advance royalty payment of $100,000.00 and provision for future royalties on cultivators sold by Lilliston. Lilliston started to manufacture the cultivator described in the patent in suit, and has since paid Lehman Equipment Co. in excess of $17,000.-00 as additional royalties.

The Lehman Equipment Co., one of the plaintiffs herein, sold their cultivator which they designated with their trademark of “Roll-N-Cultivator”, from sometime in 1959 until 1961. In January, 1961, they granted the exclusive license to the Plaintiff Lilliston Implement Company and also assigned to them the use of the trademark “Roll-N-Cultivator”.

Lehman Equipment Co., as assignee of the patent, and Lilliston Implement Company, as exclusive licensee, have a right to jointly bring this suit against the Defendant.

The Defendant, E. L. Caldwell & Sons, Inc., a Texas corporation with its main office in Corpus Christi, Texas, late in 1961 began the manufacture and sale of the cultivator charged with infringing the patent in suit, the first sale of any of their alleged infringing machines being in October, 1961.

The Defendant has answered the Plaintiffs’ suit by denying any infringement, any unfair competition, any false marking, and is also maintaining that the patent is invalid. They also have invoked the doctrine of file wrapper estoppel, and have alleged before the Court that under this doctrine the Plaintiffs have limited themselves to a cultivator whose gangs of rotary hoes are individually pivotally mounted and that are each separately free-floating.

The patent in suit has twenty-six (26) claims, but the Plaintiffs are claiming infringement of only Claims 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24. These claims read as follows:

“8. A cultivator, comprising a frame adapted to be moved forwardly over the ground, separate gangs of rotary hoes individually mounted on the frame for swinging about a transverse axis to rotatably engage spaced-apart rows of crops in a laterally extending row during forward movement of the frame, additional separate gangs of rotary hoes individually mounted from the frame for swinging about a transverse axis to rotatably engage the ground between the rows of crops rearwardly of the engagement of the hoes of the first-mentioned gangs therewith during forward movement of the frame, and means for adjusting the angular relation of the path of rotation of the hoes of each gang with respect to the forward movement of the frame.
“10. A cultivator of the character defined in claim 8, wherein the additional gangs include a pair of gangs engageable with the ground between adjacent rows of the crops engaged by the first-mentioned gangs and swingable between convergent and divergent positions.
“11. A cultivator of the character defined in claim 10, including means for adjusting and fixing the angular relation of each gang of each pair of gangs with respect to the ground level between positions tilted from one side to the other of a level position.
“12. A cultivator of the character defined in claim 10, wherein the gangs of each pair are mounted to engage the ground in longitudinally offset relation with one another.
“13. A cultivator of the character defined in claim 8, including means for adjusting the position of each additional gang laterally of the frame.
“20. A cultivator, comprising a frame adapted to be moved forwardly over the ground, a gang of rotary hoes mounted on the frame for swinging about a transverse axis to rotatably engage a row of crops dur[416]*416ing forward movement of the frame, a pair of additional gangs of rotary-hoes each mounted from the frame for swinging about a transverse axis to rotatably engage the ground on each opposite side of the row of crops and rearwardly of the engagement of the hoes of the first-mentioned gang therewith during forward movement of the frame, and means for adjusting the angular relation of the path of rotation of the hoes of each gang with respect to the forward movement of the frame.
“21. A cultivator of the character defined in claim 20, including means for adjusting and fixing the angular relation of each gang of said pair of gangs with respect to the ground level between positions tilted from one side to the other of a level position.
“22. A cultivator, comprising a frame adapted to be moved forwardly over the ground, a gang of rotary hoes, means pivotally mounting the gang from the frame for swinging about a transverse axis to rotatably engage a row of crops during forward movement of the frame, means for swinging the gang about a vertical axis to adjust the angular relation of the path of rotation of the hoes of said gang with respect to the forward movement of the frame, a pair of additional gangs of rotary hoes, means pivotally mounting each such additional gang from the frame for swinging about a transverse axis to rotatably engage the ground on each opposite side of said row of crops during said forward movement of the frame, and means for swinging the gangs of said pair about vertical axes between positions in which the paths of rotation of the hoes thereof are rearwardly convergent or divergent.
“23.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
212 F. Supp. 413, 136 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 543, 1962 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 5576, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/lilliston-implement-co-v-e-l-caldwell-sons-inc-txsd-1962.