Thomson Electric Welding Co. v. Barney & Berry, Inc.

239 F. 147, 1916 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1114
CourtDistrict Court, D. Massachusetts
DecidedJuly 11, 1916
DocketNo. 701
StatusPublished

This text of 239 F. 147 (Thomson Electric Welding Co. v. Barney & Berry, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Massachusetts primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Thomson Electric Welding Co. v. Barney & Berry, Inc., 239 F. 147, 1916 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1114 (D. Mass. 1916).

Opinion

DODGE, Circuit Judge.

The opinion of the Court of Appeals dated October 5, 1915 (227 Fed. 428, 142 C. C. A. 124), reversing the decree of this court which held the patent in suit invalid, was followed by hearings in this court in December, 1915, and January, 1916, upon draft decrees submitted by the respective parties for entry in pursuance of the directions given in said opinion. The defendant thereafter applied to the Court of Appeals for leave to amend its answer by setting up, as an anticipation of the patent in suit, a French patent to Bouchayer, which application was denied June 14, 1916. 236 Fed. 1022, — C. C. A. —.

The further proceedings in this court in pursuance of the Court of Appeals’ decision on October 5, 1915, have been in substance as,follows :

The plaintiff, submitting a draft decree adjudging the patent valid and providing in the usual terms for an injunction and accounting, stated that it had no further proof to offer arid submitted that the facts of the infringement whereof it complained were shown by the record before the appellate court.

The defendant submitted two draft decrees, one dismissing the bill, the other, in the alternative, containing a proviso excepting from the operation of the injunction any machines,. processes, and products made or used before the amendment of the patentee’s application before the issue of the patent made March 31, 1910.

The defendant thereupon offered to prove, and the plaintiff conceded, though objecting that the facts conceded were immaterial, that the witnesses produced by the Toledo Company, whose testimony appears in the record, testified as to certain machines used for spot welding in 1908 and 1909 and prior to March, 1910; that said machines were in fact used for spot welding; and that when so used they practiced the Harmatta method with the Harmatta result, under any construction as to them, of the claims in suit.

[148]*148The defendant then offered in evidence the French patent to Bouchayer, since brought b}*- it before the Court of Appeals in its application denied June 14, 1916, as above stated. This was excluded, as was also a translation of the patent into English, objected to by the plaintiff, as incorrect; and evidence offered by the defendant to prove that the translation was correct.

The defendant offered expert evidence to explain the operation of the machine described in the patent in suit and its process. This was also excluded.

The defendant then moved for leave, to amend its answer so as to set up' said Bouchayer patent as an anticipation of the patent in suit, which motion was denied; this court not regarding the opinion of the Court of Appeals as permitting such an aniendment at that stage of the proceedings.

The defendant then called Mr. Cutler, a witness who testified on its behalf at the original hearing, and he was permitted to testify, against the plaintiff’s objection, that, in heating the skatesv referred to in his former testimony, the operator held in his hand the bottom portion thereof, intended to lie against the sole of the wearer’s shoe; that during the heating operation the portion so held did not become too hot to be held without burning; and that the skates were white nickel plated before welding, whereby the welding operation was materially facilitated.

The defendant then offered in evidence three United States patents to E- S. Eachman, Nos. 896,218, 904,881, and 904,882, for the purpose of establishing the entry of other processes into the field prior to Harmatta’s amendment of his application on March 31, 1910. These were excluded, the Court of Appeals opinion not being understood as permitting their introduction at that stage of the proceeding.

Nothing further was offered by either party.

The Court of Appeals opinion is understood to have settled the following matters for the purposes of the further proceedings therein ordered:

(1) The process and product described in the patent in suit involve patentable invention.

(2) They were not anticipated by anything in the prior art disclosed by tire evidence.

(3) Nor is the patent invalid by reason of any changes made before its issue in the original application for it.

(4) Upon the evidence in the record, there has been at least some infringement by the defendant of the claims in suit. If, in the view •of the appellate court, the briefs had failed to show any infringement, its opinion could not have declared, as it does, that the bill “mustj of course, be sustained.” Whether infringement had been proved or not, supposing the patent valid, was a question fully argued on the appeal upon such evidence as both parties had seen fit to introduce, as the record and briefs show; and, as to a principal part of the alleged infringing manufacture, the opinion of this court that it had not infringed the patent, even if valid, had been stated.

Dismissal of the bill on the ground, now 'asserted by the defend[149]*149ant, that no infringement has been proved, would therefore be a proceeding inconsistent with the Court of Appeals opinion, under which the further inquiry directed by this court is to determine two questions only: (1) Whether or not the decree should be limited so as to exclude from the profits recoverable under it profits “for anything done prior to the amendment” of the patentee’s application in 1910; (2) whether from the injunction it is to contain there should be any exemption with respect to “machines constructed before the amendment was made,” and what, if any.

The patent in suit was issued December 3, 1912. This bill was filed March 13, 1913. The patent is not for a machine, but for the described process of spot welding, and for the product thereby obtained.

Between the two above dates the defendant made articles like loom parts, marked Exhibits 8 and 9, and the skates, marked Exhibits 27, 28, and 32. In making such articles it used a machine which it had installed in May, 1911, and used ever since. This machine it bought of the Toledo Electric Welder Company, which, though not a nominal party, is defending this suit. All these facts seem to me established by the answers to the plaintiff’s interrogatories in connection with the evidence in the record. There was no dispute as to any of them at the trial. The Court of Appeals opinion is not understood as deciding anything to the contrary.

No injunction is sought against, the manufacture and sale of any machine, nor against the use of any, except to the extent that it may be used in following the patented process or in producing articles spot welded according to that process. The infringement alleged in the bill is “using a method of electric welding and making- and selling metal work, plates and articles embodying the invention claimed in said letters patent.” Against such infringement only is any injunction sought; in other words, against using the patented method or making the patented product, whether with the above or with any other machine.

The validity of the patent being now established, I am unable to doubt that loom parts like Exhibits 8 and 9 infringe the product claims in suit, or that in making them the defendant infringed the process claims in suit. Except as below stated, the defendant is not understood to deny that said claims have been infringed by the manufacture of said loom parts.

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239 F. 147, 1916 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1114, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/thomson-electric-welding-co-v-barney-berry-inc-mad-1916.