Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. v. Ditto, Inc.

221 F. Supp. 980, 137 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 525, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10130
CourtDistrict Court, D. Minnesota
DecidedApril 17, 1963
DocketNo. 4-60 Civ. 60
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 221 F. Supp. 980 (Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. v. Ditto, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Minnesota primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing Co. v. Ditto, Inc., 221 F. Supp. 980, 137 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 525, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10130 (mnd 1963).

Opinion

NORDBYE, District Judge.

The Court heretofore had determined as the result of the first hearing that the patent was invalid primarily by reason of the teachings of one Niepce as reflected in his article published in London in the Photographic News on June 3, 1859. Reference also was made in the Court’s memorandum decision to the so-called Hunt article in the Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science of July-December, 1840. The Court filed its memorandum decision on March 16,1962. Findings of fact and conclusions of law were filed on July 17, 1962. In view of the finding of patent invalidity, the Court did not discuss the question of infringement and the alleged file wrapper estoppel.

Plaintiff filed a motion for new trial pursuant to the provisions of Rules 59 and 52(b), Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The motion was based upon alleged errors of the Court and upon the ground of newly discovered evidence. [981]*981After a hearing, the Court on November 2,1962, vacated its memorandum decision of March 16, 1962, and the findings of fact and conclusions of law and the judgment entered thereon, and granted plaintiff a new trial on the issue of the validity of the Miller patent. The new trial was heard on December 17 to 20, 1962. Both sides presented evidence, and the validity of the patent, therefore, is to be determined not only on the evidence before this Court at the first hearing from February 27,1961, to March 3,1961, but also on the evidence produced at the hearing from December 17 to 20, 1962.

The newly discovered evidence pertains to the discovery by the plaintiff of the original article in French presented by Niepce to the French Academy on May 23, 1849. The account published in the Photographic News purported to be an English translation thereof. The principle difference in the original French text and that which appears in the English translation is to be found wherein Niepce specifically states in the French text that a greasy ink image could be produced on sensitive paper when exposed to his method of heating, although aqueous or water-based ink would not produce copies. Plaintiff contends that the original French text confirms its position that it is the difference in the chemical constituents of the ink and not its absorptivity that Niepce noted when he discussed his success with printer’s ink and his lack of success in using ordinary ink.

When the patent validity question was first considered by this Court, the position taken by the parties was substantially the same as that which is presented by the new evidence. However, the experiments' made according to the teaching of Niepce have been greatly extended and broadened. Moreover, the evidence as to the difference as to the absorptivity of heat by graphic images as compared to the paper on which the images appear when heated to 100° C. has been convincingly established. In other words, the entire evidence impels a finding that there can be no heat pattern from any radiation produced at the temperature of boiling water. All of Niepce’s experiments were made with a metal plate heated to 100° C., except that he does state that

“Paper prepared with very dilute nitric acid (1 percent.), or with a solution of 45 grains of cyanide of potassium to the ounce of water, is sufficiently sensitive to yield thermographic images, but only at a much higher temperature than 212° Fahr.”

He states also, in referring to the images he produced, that “if it be not sufficiently distinct, it may be forced out by exposing the sheet of paper to the radiant heat from a fire.” But there is nothing in Niepce’s teachings which would indicate that in the use of any of these chemicals ■ — nitrate and cyanide of potassium- — -in making heat-sensitive paper, he was aware that there would be any heat differential pattern created by radiant energy whereby the images on the original would absorb the increased radiation and conduct heat to the sensitive sheet and thus produce a copy.

The French text does lend weight to plaintiff’s position that the reproduction of the printed page as produced by Niepce was due to the chemicals in the ink rather than by reason of any heat transfer. But the ultimate question before the Court is' whether Niepce disclosed the placing of a graphic original in close contact with a heat-sensitive paper and then by radiant energy created a heat differential pattern whereby the characters on the paper would absorb the radiation and conduct that heat to his heat-sensitive paper and produce a copy. Or, stating it another way, did Niepce merely produce a-copying of the graphic original on to the heat-sensitive paper by the application of heat and produce a chemical or a mere transferring by conduction of the graphic original on to the heat-sensitive paper?

Admittedly, the reproduction of the graphic original on to Niepce’s conventional heat-sensitive paper when these papers are placed in close contact in a book without any heat, as disclosed by [982]*982plaintiff’s new evidence, must be a process of chemical action. It cannot be successfully urged that in exposing this heat-sensitive paper with the graphic images produced under such circumstances “to the radiant heat from a fire” in order to make the image more distinct, this exposure to heat would be an illustration of the teachings of Miller in the use of radiant energy. A similar experiment with Thermofax paper and a graphic image placed in a book produced no reproduction. Likewise, when a graphic ink image is placed between two glass slides and heated to 100° C., and then the graphic image is removed and Niepce’s heat-sensitive paper is placed between the same glass slides and reheated, with a reproduction of the image on the heat-sensitive paper, the only explanation of this phenomena is that it represents a chemical process. And when a word is written in pencil on an ordinary sheet of paper with ruled lines and then this sheet is placed in close contact with Niepce’s paper coated with silver nitrate and gold chloride and placed on a plate and subjected to the heat of boiling water, the ruled lines appear, but the wx-iting with the pencil does not appear, the only explanation must be that a chemical process in obtaining the transfer was involved. When this experiment was produced with Thermofax paper and the Miller method, the pencil writing was reproduced, but not the ruled lines. It seems clear, therefore, that the inability of Niepce to reproduce carbon images was due to the fact that the black carbon inscriptions did not have the chemical ingredients to be reproduced on his sensitive paper at 100° C. And, moreover, the undeniable fact is from the evidence that at that temperature (100° C.) the absorptivity of the paper and the black carbon is substantially the same so that no heat differential pattern could be created. The Court over-simplified Miller’s teachings in its original memorandum when it stated that Niepce accomplished the same results as Miller when he placed a heat-sensitive sheet in contact with a graphic original, and upon exposing this couplet to the heat produced from a hot plate in contact with boiling water, a positive copy of the graphic original was obtained.

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221 F. Supp. 980, 137 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 525, 1963 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10130, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/minnesota-mining-manufacturing-co-v-ditto-inc-mnd-1963.