N. O. Nelson Mfg. Co. v. F. E. Myers & Bro. Co.

56 F.2d 512, 12 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 509, 1932 U.S. App. LEXIS 2778
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedFebruary 2, 1932
DocketNo. 5776
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 56 F.2d 512 (N. O. Nelson Mfg. Co. v. F. E. Myers & Bro. 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
N. O. Nelson Mfg. Co. v. F. E. Myers & Bro. Co., 56 F.2d 512, 12 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 509, 1932 U.S. App. LEXIS 2778 (6th Cir. 1932).

Opinion

MOORMAN, Circuit Judge.

Following the decision of this court on the first appeal of this case [25 F.(2d) 659] the appellant filed a petition for rehearing, and made a motion, based on an Australian patent to Saunders, No. 17,970/15, dated November 18, 1915, to vacate the decision and remand the cause to the district court for a hearing and decision upon such additional proofs as might be offered. Before the motion was passed upon, appellee filed in the Patent Office formal disclaimers as to the two claims which had been sustained by the court in its opinion. This being brought to the attention of the court, the petition for rehearing was denied and the cause remanded to the district court, with direction to reopen it and consider and determine the validity and infringement of the claims as affected by the disclaimers. 29 F.(2d) 968. Pursuant to this order, the lower court reopened the cause and referred it to a master to hear the evidence and report his conclusions of law and fact on the issues ordered to be determined. After proofs were heard the master filed a report sustaining both claims as limited by the disclaimers and finding infringement. Appellant filed exceptions to the findings and conclusions of the master, and on the same day moved to dismiss the bill on the ground that there was no evidence of the commission after the "filing of the disclaimers of any act of infringement. The District Court denied the motion to dismiss, overruled the exceptions to the master’s findings, and entered a decree in accordance with the report, from which this is an appeal.

The motion to dismiss was based upon the proposition, advanced in argument here, that original claims 7 and 1 were, not only admitted to be invalid by appellee when it filed its disclaimers, but were shown to be so by the new /references. Upon that basis it is contended that the bill should have been dismissed by the lower court because the infringing acts relied upon were committed before the filing of the disclaimers. We cannot agree that Dunbar v. Meyers, 94 U. S. 187, 24 L. Ed. 34, the Packing Company Cases, 105 U. S. 566, 26 L. Ed. 1172, and Collins Co. v. Coes, 130 U. S. 56, 9 S. Ct. 514, 32 L. Ed. 858, require the conclusion [513]*513that the filing of the disclaimers was a confession that the original claims were invalid for anticipation. See Permutit Co. v. Wadham, 13 F.(2d) 454, 455 (6 C. C. A.), not reversed on this point in Permutit Co. v. Graver Corp., 52 S. Ct. 53, 76 L. Ed. -. Nor in our opinion is it necessary to consider on this appeal whether original claims 7 and 1 are or are not infringed by the appellant’s device. In passing on the motion to remand, we expressly held that the disclaimers did not present a new and different cause of action, but were “in complete harmony” with the specifications, and “operated to limit the claims, not by the inclusion of a. new element, but by the exclusion of part of the field of equivalency which the original claim language might have included.” The case was accordingly remanded to the District Court for a determination of the “validity and infringement of the claims in suit as modified by the disclaimers.”

The statute (USCA, title 35, § 65) provides that whenever, through inadvertence, accident, or mistake, and without any fraudulent or deceptive intention, a patentee has claimed more than that of which he was the original or first inventor or discoverer, “his patent shall be valid for all that part which is truly and justly his own,” provided it is a material or substantial part of the things patented; and it gives the patentee the right to make disclaimer of such part of the thing patented as he shall not choose to claim or hold, providing that “no such disclaimer shall affect any action pending at the time of its being filed, except so far as may relate to the question of unreasonable neglect or delay in filing it [the disclaimer].” Under this statute these disclaimers, upon being allowed, related back to and were effective as of the date of the issue of the patent. Dunbar v. Meyers, supra, page 194 of 94 U. S., 24 L. Ed. 34; Carnegie Steel Co. v. Cambria Iron Co., 185 U. S. 403, 435, 436, 22 S. Ct. 698, 46 L. Ed. 968; Schwarzwalder et al. v. New York Filter Co. (C. C. A.) 66 F. 152. Being in harmony with the patent disclosures, as was held on the motion to remand, it would seem logically to follow that they must be regarded as part of the patent at the time of the commission of the acts alleged to infringe. See Marconi Wireless T. Co. v. De Forest Radio T. & T. Co. (C. C. A.) 243 F. 560, 565; Excelsior Steel Furnace Co. v. Williamson Heater Co., 269 F. 614, 619, 620 (6 C. C. A.); Metropolitan Device Corporation v. Cleveland E. Illuminating Co., 36 F.(2d) pages 477, 478, 479 (6 C. C. A.). It results that the only advantage the appellant can derive from the filing of the disclaimers after instead of before suit is that under title 35, § 71, USCA, no costs can be recovered against it in the District Court. The questions for decision, therefore, are whether the claims as limited by the disclaimers are valid, and, if so, whether the acts complained of amounted to infringement.

Claim 7 of patent 1,385,141 as limited by disclaimer is set out in the margin.1 On the former appeal this court sustained the original claim and held it infringed by appellant’s device. We do not deem it necessary to discuss the many references cited against the claim on that hearing, some of which were referred to by the court in its opinion. It suffices that those thought at the time to be closest were distinguished, and none of them was found to disclose “a pump head detachably secured to said [power head] casing.” On the hearing before the master, counsel for appellee objected to the cross-examination of one of the witnesses as to that feature of the claim upon the ground that “it is not now involved” in the two claims in issue. It is said by appellant that this statement of counsel was an abandonment of that feature of the claim. But the court had already determined the importance of its relation to the claim here in issue, and the disclaimers left it in the claim. In view of those facts, we cannot give to the statement made before the master the effect contended for appellant. The more reasonable view would be that counsel regarded the pertinency of the element as a matter already adjudicated and determined. We consider the claim, therefore, in the light of what it calls for, and we see no reason to change our view, as expressed in. the original opinion, as to the effect of this element in the combination. It is lacking in both the Saunders patent and the Australian patent to Bryan, 7724/18, June 19, 1918. The Saunders patent has a water pipe which fits in and extends through a collar or ring east integral with or permanently connected to the easing of the power head. In Bryan there is a vertical tube in [514]*514which the pump rod reciprocates. This tube is carried by the wind-mill table and extends upwardly therefrom and is inclosed by projections integral with the casing. The easing with the projections rotate over the table as the wind wheel veers. In neither of these devices can the pump head, if the vertical water pipe or tube can be so denominated, be detached from the power head except by lifting the power head above the top of the tube.

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Bluebook (online)
56 F.2d 512, 12 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 509, 1932 U.S. App. LEXIS 2778, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/n-o-nelson-mfg-co-v-f-e-myers-bro-co-ca6-1932.