Withington-Cooley Manuf'g Co. v. Kinney

68 F. 500, 15 C.C.A. 531, 1895 U.S. App. LEXIS 2885
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit·Decided June 4, 1895·No. No. 270·Published·Cited by 16 cases

Opinion

LURTON, Circuit Judge.

The complainant in the court below, Horace B. Kinney, is the inventor and sole owner of patent No. 264,837, which was issued September 19, 1882, for an improvement in power presses used in the manufacture of hoes and forks. The de[501] fendant below was the Withington-Gooley Manufacturing Company, a corporation of the state of Michigan. The object of the bill was to enjoin and restrain the defendant company from using two power presses which complainant alleges infringe the improvement covered by his patent. Upon a final hearing there was a decree in favor of the complainant, sustaining the validity of his patent, adjudging the defendant to have infringed, and enjoining it from making, selling, or using power presses embodying the invention described and claimed in letters patent No. 264,837. There was also a judgment against the defendant for nominal damages and costs, an accounting being waived by complainant.

The validity of Kinney’s patent has not been seriously questioned. Neither can there be any serious doubt on this record that the power presses used by the appellant do infringe the complainant’s patent. The only substantial defense urged by the appellant is that the presses used by it were made by one Henry D. Babcock, and bought by it from Babcock, who claims to be a licensee under Kinney, having authority to make and sell presses embodying the invention secured under his letters patent. The controversy must therefore hinge upon the rights of Babcock as a licensee under Kinney. For some 12 years or more prior to the issuance of Kinney’s patent, Babcock had been a manufacturer of machines used in the making of steel goods, especially of such machines as were used in making hoes and forks. His shops were at Leonardsville, N1 Y. Kinney lived in a village near by, and was a practical machinist and a good mechanic. He had made some improvements in machines used in the fork and hoe manufacture, and had taken out a patent on a splitting and bending machine, which Babcock made, paying a royalty to Kinney on each machine as he sold it. Babcock was also the maker of a power press, made upon old principles and covered by no patent The claim of appellant is that Kinney was employed for the express purpose of drawing plans and constructing patterns by which a new and improved power press might be made for the trade, with the clutch mechanism located in the slide or die holder in place of on the eccentric shaft, as in all the old forms of such presses. The appellee, on the other hand, insists that he was employed to make drawings and construct patterns by which an old form of press used by the Bemington Agricultural Works, at Ilion, might be duplicated and sold to Babcock’s customers in place of the old form of press made by Babcock, called a post press. He also claims that after he had made a rough sketch of this Ilion press, and had taken its measurements, he fold Babcock that he had for a long time had an idea in his head, which it had not been convenient to work out before, by which a new' press, acting more quickly and smoothly, might be made with the clutch mechanism shifted from the eccentric shaft to the slide sash, and that upon explanation Babcock directed Mm to prepare the drawings according to his new idea, with the understanding that if Ms plan was a failure he (Kinney) should bear the expenses of the experiment. While there is some evidence that Babcock was frequently consulted by Kinney during the preparation of the draw[502] ings, making of the patterns, and in the experiment's incidental to the perfecting of his improvements, yet there is no substantial con,flict in regard to the fact that Kinney was the real inventor of the material improvements embodied in the patent subsequently issued to him. Neither is there any evidence of an agreement by which the employer should have any interest in any patentable improvement in power presses which Kinney might make during the period of his employment by Babcock. In the absence of evidence of such an agreement, it would seem that the title to the invention made by Kinney, or to any patent subsequently obtained by him, would be unaffected by the fact that he was in the service of Babcock, and in the use of his shop, materials, and of the service of his em-ployés while devising and perfecting his invention. Hapgood v. Hewitt, 119 U. S. 226-233, 7 Sup. Ct. 193.

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Withington-Cooley Manuf'g Co. v. Kinney, 68 F. 500, 15 C.C.A. 531, 1895 U.S. App. LEXIS 2885 (6th Cir. 1895).

68 F. 500 (Withington-Cooley Manuf'g Co. v. Kinney) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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