Case ID: f_78/html/0363-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "LACOMBE, Circuit Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

THOMSON-HOUSTON ELECTRIC CO. v. UNION RY. CO. et al. SAME v. NEW YORK, E. & W. P. RY. CO. et al.
    (Circuit Court, S. D. New York.
    May 30, 1896.)
    Patents — Infringement— Preliminary Injunction.
    Preliminary injunction granted, on the strength of prior decisions, against the infringement of the Van Depoele patent, No. 495,443, for traveling contacts for electric railways.
    These were two suits in equity, broug'ht by the Thomson-Houston Electric Company against the Union Railway Company and others, and the RTew York, Elmsford & White Plains Railway Gom-panv and others, respectively, to restrain the alleged infringement of the Van Depoele patent, Yo. 495,443, for traveling contacts for electric railways. The cause was heard on motion for a preliminary injunction.
    Frederic H. Betts, for complainant.
    William C. Witter and George H. Lothrop, for defendants.
   LACOMBE, Circuit Judge.

The patent has been adjudicated in this circuit, and the claims declared on have been sustained. The defendant in that suit has acquiesced in the validity of the patent, and taken licenses. The validity of the patent is not assailed here, and the manufacturer of the very trolleys operated by defendants in both these suits, the Nuttall Company, has itself conceded validity, and taken licenses. The situation, therefore, is closely analogous to that in Campbell Printing-Press & Manuf'g Co. v. Manhattan Ry. Co., 49 Fed. 930. Ten cars now in use on the Union Railway and four ears on the White Plains road have, or had, the Nuttall trolley, and, as it is not entirely clear upon the papers but what defendants may he able to show that these particular trolleys are within the provisions of the license given by complainant to the. Nuttall Company,' it seems unnecessary at this stage of the Case to interfere with these fourteen cars. Complainant, however, may take an injunction 'forbidding the defendant railways from hereafter using any infringing combination covered by the claims specified (except such as may now be in use on the fourteen cars), unless they show that such infringing combinations have been manufactured and sold under license from the owner of the patent.