Sheldon v. United States

4 Ct. Cust. 42, 1913 WL 19723, 1913 CCPA LEXIS 31
CourtCourt of Customs and Patent Appeals
DecidedFebruary 28, 1913
DocketNo. 985
StatusPublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 4 Ct. Cust. 42 (Sheldon v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Customs and Patent Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sheldon v. United States, 4 Ct. Cust. 42, 1913 WL 19723, 1913 CCPA LEXIS 31 (ccpa 1913).

Opinion

Barber, Judge,

delivered the opinion of the court:

In the language of the board's opinion the articles here involved are described as follows:

The merchandise consists of articles of paper lithographically printed, with [which] ’ exhibit in a pictorial manner the outline, form, and mechanical features of either a locomotive or an automobile. The various parts are accurately shown by superimposed paper flaps, arranged in proper order, and which are hinged so that they may be turned back to show the interior mechanism of the machine or engine.

To this description may be added the further statement that upon each main sheet and the various superimposed flaps different parts of the mechanism shown are numbered. These numbers appear to correspond to like numbers on an accompanying key sheet upon which, opposite the numbers, are given the appropriate names of the parts so numbered. It was found by the board, and is not otherwise claimed, that they are designed for the use of students.

The sole question is whether these articles are “charts” within the meaning of paragraph 416 of the act of 1909. The board affirmed the collector’s action in so assessing them.

The paragraph reads as follows:

416. Books of all kinds, bound or unbound, including blank books, slale books and pamphlets, engravings, photographs, etchings, maps, charts, music in books or sheets, and printed matter, all the foregoing wholly or in chief value of paper, and not specially provided for in this section, twenty-five per centum ad valorem. * * *

[43]*43It is not denied that if not dutiable as assessed they are dutiable as articles of paper lithographically printed under paragraph 412 of the same act.

' It is contended by the importers in substance that the word “charts” as used in the paragraph, which seems to have first appeared in the tariff act of July 30, 1846, and to have been used in succeeding tariff acts down to and including the one here involved without material change in context, relates to hydrographic or marine maps and can not be held to eo nomine describe merchandise like that at bar.

The Government, to some extent at least, concedes that when the statute was first enacted the common meaning of the word “charts” was limited, as claimed by the importers, but it contends that the meaning of the word has long since been broadened in the common use and understanding, and that it can not be assumed that Congress alone remains in ignorance of the recognition by lexicographers and others of such broader signification of the word. It further urges that, in the decisions of the Board of General Appraisers hereinafter referred to, the broader meaning has been adopted, which meaning, it is claimed, Congress has approved by subsequently enacting two tariff statutes in which the word “charts” appears with no indication that it disagreed with the extended meaning attached thereto by the board and of which it had presumptive notice.

The first meaning given to the word “chart” by nearly if not all of the lexicographers at the present time is that contended for by the importers, although various of such authorities indicate that the word is now used with broader meanings that may include the articles here in question.

The nature of the issue has prompted us to refer briefly to all the cases cited by the parties that throw light upon the same.

The importers refer us to Taylor v. Gilman (24 Fed., 632) decided in 1885. Tins was an action to recover a penalty or forfeiture for violation of the copyright laws. In that case, as stated in the opinion by Wheeler, Judge, the original copyright act of 1790 provided for maps, charts, and books, and the learned judge was evidently satisfied that at the date of the statute a chart was limited to a marine map. In the opinion he states that in the process of time “sheets of paper exhibiting tabulated or methodically arranged information came to be called charts, so that a definition of chart covering them was'put into the edition of Worcester’s Dictionary published in 1864 and into that of Webster’s Dictionary published in 1865.” The articles before the court in that case, which were alleged to be an infringement of the plaintiff’s copyright, seem to have consisted of single sheets doubled so as to make two leaves with four pages upon which was printed certain interesting tabulated political information. [44]*44Tlie chart which was copyrighted by the plaintiff in that case was substantially like the one complained of, and the claimed infringement seems to have been the printed political information thereon. In discussing the case the court said:

These publications would, perhaps, come within this new definition of chart. * * * When books and charts were first protected by the copyright laws this work would not have been protected as a chart nor for many years afterwards. No change has been made in the use of that term in the statute to indicate that Congress intended that it should take to itself there any new definition.

The court then proceeded to apply the doctrine that a penal statute must be strictly construed and held that the plaintiff's claimed copyrighted article was not covered by the word “charts” in the copyright statute. In other words, that the copyright was invalid.

The importers also cite Ehret v. Pierce (10 Fed., 553), decided in 1880, where it was held in substance that (using the language of the syllabus) “an advertising card devised for the purpose of displaying paints of various colors, consisting of a sheet of paper having attached thereta square bits of paper painted in various colors, each square having a different color, with some lithographic work surrounding the squares, advertising the sale of the colors,” was not the subject of a copyright as included in the words “book, map, chart, musical composition, print, cut, or engraving” used in the statute of 1831 to designate the subjects of copyright. The plaintiff in that case claimed it to be a chart within the meaning of the word as used in that statute.

The Government cites Drury v. Ewing (7 Fed. Cas., No. 4095), decided in 1862; also, the board decisions hereinafter referred to.

In Drury v. Ewing the complainant asked for an attachment for contempt for the violation of a perpetual injunction entered upon final decree in a bill to restrain the violation of complainant's copyright in what was referred to in the opinion as a chart for cutting dresses and basques for ladies and certain garments for boys, etc. The bill in the original case had alleged and the answer, by implication, admitted that the charts were the subject of copyright under the act of 1831, providing that any book or books, map, chart, or musical composition might be copyrighted. In defense of the contempt proceedings it was claimed that the complainant’s chart was not the legitimate subject of a copyright as within the scope and intention of the act. The court held that it was not competent in that manner to impeach the decree in view of the pleadings and evidence upon which it had been entered. It then proceeded, however, to discuss the question as to whether or not the alleged charts were within the statute a subject of copyright, and after a very interest[45]*45ing and exhaustive consideration of the subject came to the conclusion that the so-called charts were books within the meaning of that word as used in the copyright statute.

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4 Ct. Cust. 42, 1913 WL 19723, 1913 CCPA LEXIS 31, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sheldon-v-united-states-ccpa-1913.