Schick Dry Shaver, Inc. v. Nicholl, Inc.

21 F. Supp. 731, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1271
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. California
DecidedDecember 14, 1937
DocketNo. 1273-C
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 21 F. Supp. 731 (Schick Dry Shaver, Inc. v. Nicholl, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Schick Dry Shaver, Inc. v. Nicholl, Inc., 21 F. Supp. 731, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1271 (S.D. Cal. 1937).

Opinion

McCORMICK, District Judge.

On October 27, 1937, complainants filed a bill of complaint in equity against the defendant for the infringement of two patents, namely, No. 1,721,530 issued July 23, 1929, upon an application filed March 31, 1928, and No. 1,757,978 issued May 13, 1930, upon an application -filed April 23, 1928. Both grants are to Jacob Schick and are for a shaving implement and shaving machine respectively.

The first and second named complainants are the exclusive licensee and the owner of the patents in suit, respectively, and the last named is the sole distributor throughout the State of California of the “Schick Dry Shaver,” a device which embodies the inventions of the two patents.

The defendant Nicholl, Inc., is a corporation having a regular and established place of business in Los Angeles, California, within the jurisdiction of this court, where it has manufactured, offered for salé, and sold dry shaving devices under the name of “Nicholl Velvet Shaver,” which complainants aver to be infringement of each of the two patents in suit.

The immediate issue before the court is an application for preliminary injunction against defendant to restrain it pendente lite from directly or indirectly infringing the earlier of the two patents, to wit, No. 1,721,530.

The proceeding is based upon the allegations of the verified bill of complaint and supporting affidavits simultaneously filed, upon which an order to show cause was issued. • Upon the return day defendant filed responsive affidavits, and without objection complainants later filed further affidavits answering new matter brought in by defendant on its response to the order to show cause. The issue has been extensively argued by the solicitors for each side and is submitted for decision upon the entire record. There are .also in evidence exemplars of the different types of defendant’s shaving devices which complainants claim are infringements.

Neither the title of complainants to the patent involved in this proceeding nor the right of complainants to sue for its infringement is disputed. The validity of the patent has been adjudged in a contested infringement suit in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Schick Dry Shaver v. Dictograph Products Co., 16 F.Supp. 936, and upon appeal from the final -decree of such court in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Schick Dry Shaver v. Dictograph Products Co., 89 F.2d 643. These two courts sustained claims 1 and 13 of the patent as valid, and before reaching such findings examined the entire field of the art in question, both in the United States and abroad. The three judges of the appellate court were unanimous on the decision that the patent and the two mentioned claims thereof constituted meritorious invention and substantially advanced the art of dry shaving, but divided as to the scope or breadth which these claims should be given, two holding that solely because of an earlier British patent, No. 753, issued to Appleyard in 1914, for improvements in shaving or hair cutting appliances, the claims should be narrowed, while the third judge dissented and attributed to the Schick improvement an invention having pioneer characteristics under Eibel Process Co. v. Paper Co., 261 U.S. 45, 63, 43 S.Ct. 322, 328, 67 L.Ed. 523, and Kings County Raisin & Fruit Co. v. United States Consolidated Seeded Raisin Co., 9 Cir., 182 F. 59, 62, and the claims therefore entitled to liberal treatment in order that the improver might enjoy fully the fruits of his discovery. See Schick Dry Shaver, Inc., et al. v. Dictograph Products Co., D.C.N.Y., 16 F.S. 936; Id., 2 Cir., 89 F.2d 643, 646; Id., 33 U.S.P.Q. 350.

This patent has been considered by this court in a suit in equity [No. 1274-(J) M], 21 F.Supp. 722, wherein there is indicated our independent belief as to the effect the Appleyard patent should be given in the dry shaving art in considering the Schick invention and in ascertaining from its clear claims the extent of protection that Schick should enjoy in order to secure the benefits .-and advantages which his discovery warrants.

It is our view that while both Apple-yard’s and Schick’s patents can be considered as adaptations of the old principle used in hair clippers, that is the only feature that is common to both disclosures. The difference is not merely one of degree, but lies in construction, mode of operation, and results.

Schick, according to the record before us, is shown to have substantially advanced the art over all, including Appleyard, by specifying, claiming, and manufacturing a new, practical, and efficient latherless or dry shaving implement which has brought about unprecedented commercial success in [733]*733the tonsorial art. The fact that for the fifteen years between Appleyard’s disclosures and Schick’s patent no one had been able to make or market a successful dry shaver, to my mind places Schick in the category of a pioneer inventor. Eibel Process Co. v. Paper Co., supra.

This revolutionary accomplishment by Schick we believe is similar to that of the inventor Smith whose broad patent claims had been restricted in certain lower courts by language contained in his patent specifications, and where the Supreme Court, in Smith v. Snow, 294 U.S. 1, 14, 55 S.Ct. 279, 284, 79 L.Ed. 721, in holding otherwise, said: “If the matter were doubtful, it is plain from what has been said that the character of the patent and its commercial and practical success are such as to entitle the inventor to broad claims and to a liberal construction of those which he has made. Moreley Machine Co. v. Lancaster, 129 U.S. 263, 273-277, 9 S.Ct. 299, 32 L.Ed. 715; Eibel Process Co. v. Paper Co., 261 U.S. 45, 63, 43 S.Ct. 322, 328, 67 L.Ed. 523; Winans v. Denmead, supra [15 How. 330, at page 341, 14 L.Ed. 717]. In such circumstances, if the claim were fairly susceptible of two constructions, that should be adopted which will secure to the patentee his actual invention, rather than to adopt a construction fatal to the grant, Keystone Manufacturing Co. v. Adams, 151 U.S. 139, 144, 145, 14 S.Ct. 295, 38 L.Ed. 103; McClain v. Ortmayer, 141 U.S. 419, 425, 12 S. Ct. 76, 35 L.Ed. 800.”

But entirely aside from the effect which we think Appleyard’s accomplishments and teachings had on Schick’s admittedly meritorious improvement, it is clear that under the construction of the Schick patent found in the majority and controlling opinion of the Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, the “Nicholl Velvet Shavers” are unquestionably shown by the record here to be infringements of Schick’s patent, No. 1,721,530.

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Related

Davis v. Schick Dry Shaver, Inc.
112 F.2d 706 (Ninth Circuit, 1940)
Schick Dry Shaver, Inc. v. General Shaver Corp.
26 F. Supp. 190 (D. Connecticut, 1938)
Nicholl, Inc. v. Schick Dry Shaver, Inc.
98 F.2d 511 (Ninth Circuit, 1938)

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Bluebook (online)
21 F. Supp. 731, 1937 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1271, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/schick-dry-shaver-inc-v-nicholl-inc-casd-1937.