Rip Van Winkle Wall Bed Co. v. Murphy Wall Bed Co.

1 F.2d 673, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 1877
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedOctober 13, 1924
DocketNo. 4214
StatusPublished
Cited by9 cases

This text of 1 F.2d 673 (Rip Van Winkle Wall Bed Co. v. Murphy Wall Bed Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rip Van Winkle Wall Bed Co. v. Murphy Wall Bed Co., 1 F.2d 673, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 1877 (9th Cir. 1924).

Opinion

MORROW, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiffs (appellees here) brought suit in the lower court against defendant (appellant here) for the alleged infringement of plaintiffs’ patent for improvements in concealed or disappearing beds. The original number of plaintiffs’ patent is 1,007,596 dated October 31, 1911; a reissued patent numbered 13,428 is dated June 11, 1912, and is the patent in suit.

On April 8, 1911, W. L. Murphy filed an application for other improvements in disappearing beds. The patent issued June 18, 1912, upon this application, is numbered 1,030,201. The patent is not in suit, but the disclosure therein has a bearing on the question involved in this suit.

Plaintiff Marshall & Stearns Company is the licensee under the patent for Northern California.

The reissued patent No. 13,428 contains fourteen claims. The complaint charges the defendant with the infringement of only four of these claims, namely, claims 9, 10, 13, and 14; bnt the controversy turns upon the elements of the combination of bed structure described in claims 13 and 14 as compared with and differentiated from the elements of the combination of bed structure described in claims 9 and 10 and defendant’s bed structure.

In these claims and following papers we italicize, for convenient reference, the essential elements of the combination of bed structure in controversy as follows:

“9. In combination with a wall having an opening, a bed of greater width than said opening, and pivotal means for connecting the wall, al one vertical side of said opening, and the bed whereby, in the horizontal movement of the bed through said opening on said pivotal connections, different portions of the bed swing therethrough at different times.

“10. In combination with a wall having an opening, a bed of greater width than said opening, and pivotal means for connecting the wall, at one vertical side of said opening, and the bed intermediate of the sides thereof. * * ’

“13. In combination with a wail having an opening, a bed pivoted on a vertical axis adjacent to one side of said opening and intermediate between the sides of the bed.

“14. In combination with a wail having an opening, a bed comprising a part pivoted on a vertical axis adjacent to one side of said opening and intermediate between the sides of the bed, and a folding bed frame adapted to swing- upward upon a horizontal axis.”

The answer denies the allegations of the bill of complaint. The validity of plaintiff’s reissue patent is, however, not attacked. No special defenses are pleaded, and defendant relies solely on the general issue of noninfringement.

After the filing of the bill of complaint and answer, plaintiffs moved the court for a preliminary injunction supported by affidavits. The affidavit of Hubert O. Prost qualifies himself as an expert in writing descriptions of machines and processes of all kinds, in studying and comparing patent disclosures, and in comparing and differentiating machines of practically every description. He states that he is familiar with plaintiff’s [674]*674reissued patent in suit; that it discloses “a bed adapted to be moved about a vertical axis through an opening and shifted laterally in respect to such opening when at the rear thereof and when at the front thereof.”

This, he says, is the'broad idea of the Murphy patent and is found expressed in claims 13 and 14. He identifies an exhibit illustrating a bed offered for sale by the defendant and finds the Murphy invention embodied therein.

William L. Murphy, the inventor of the bed mechanism covered by the patent in suit, and the president of the Murphy Wall Bed Company, sets forth in an affidavit that the great value of the invention disclosed in his patent was immediately recognized by the various wall bed companies upon the first introduction on the market; that the popular demand for this type of bed tempted practically every wall bed concern in California to infringing • same. As a result of such unlawful appropriation of its property, the Murphy Company has been compelled to litigate its rights over and over again at a cost to it of many thousands of dollars. He gives a list of the infringing suits that have been successfully prosecuted in that behalf. He affirms and indorses the statement of H. G. Prost in respect to the embodiment of the Murphy invention in defendant’s bed structure.

In opposition to this showing on behalf of the plaintiff, the defendant submitted affidavits, among others one by George J. Henry, who also qualifies himself as an expert in patent controversies by alleging that during the last 25. years, and more particularly the last 4 years, almost continually he has been engaged in preparing patent applications, construing patents, writing descriptions, writing opinions on patent matters, testifying as a patent expert, prosecuting patent applications, and various and sundry other matters connected with inventions and patents. He identifies patent No. 1,007,592 issued to Robert H. Anderson on September 30, 1913, under which patent defendant is operating under a license. This patent he says discloses in part a wall having an opening of greater width than the bed, the opening adapted to be closed by two doors, the width of each door being approximately one-half of said opening. One of said doors is centrally pivoted, and the other is hinged on the side of said opening. A bed is attached to the centrally pivoted door, said bed when at one side of said opening being immediately concealed behind the two doors, whereas when it is at the other side of said opening it is shifted laterally away from approximately one-half of said opening, allowing the hinged door to close. It will be noted, he says, that when the bed shown in the Anderson patent is positioned on one side of the opening it is impossible for a person to enter through the hinged door. The defendant has therefore made an improvement on the Anderson patent, whereby the bed is laterally displaced when at the rear of the opening, as well as laterally displaced when at the front of said opening, thereby affording an entrance to a closet through the hinged door with the bed in position in either the closet or the room. Defendant has also found it unnecessary to make the hinged door approximately one-half of the opening, and has therefore made it approximately one-third of said opening.

Affiant says further that he has carefully studied the Murphy reissue patent, No. 13,-428, dated June 11, 1922, and has examined the file history of both the original and reissue applications and the prior art relating to the Murphy patent. He has also read the affidavit of Hubert G. Prost, plaintiff’s expert, and has noticed that Prost, in his affidavit, says that the “broad idea” disclosed in the Murphy reissue patent is “a bed adapted to be moved about a vertical axis through an opening and shifted laterally in respect to such opening when at the rear thereof, and when at the front thereof.”

Affiant says, further, that he has searched the Murphy patent in vain to find any such statement in either the description or the claims, and that the lateral shifting of the bed as a part of the “broad idea” seems to have been entirely overlooked by Murphy when preparing his application for the patent.

Affiant points out further that in the ease of Perfection Disappearing Bed Co. v. Murphy Wall Bed Co., 266 Fed.

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Bluebook (online)
1 F.2d 673, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 1877, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rip-van-winkle-wall-bed-co-v-murphy-wall-bed-co-ca9-1924.