Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/213/301/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 02:30:51+00:00

Document:
Leeds and Catlin Company v.
Where grave questions of fact are presented by the proof on which a preliminary injunction has been granted in a patent case, this Court will not go beyond the action of the lower court and decide those questions and the case on the merits.
A combination which produces by the cooperation of its constituents the result specified in the manner specified is a true mechanical device, and a valid combination.
A patent may embrace more than one invention, Steinmetz v. Allen, 192 U. S. 543, and it may embrace a process and the apparatus by which it is performed.
Where dependent and related inventions are patented separately, a foreign patent for either does not affect the other under § 4887, Rev.Stat., and the same rule applies if such inventions are embraced in one patent.
While a combination is a union of elements which may be partly new, or wholly old or wholly new, the combination is a means distinct from its constituent elements, any of which, if new and patentable, may be covered by separate claims in the same patent as the combination.
Separate claims in the same patent are independent inventions, and the infringement of one is not the infringement of the others, and the redress of the patentee is limited by the injury he suffers; nor is the validity and duration of valid claims affected by the invalidity or expiration of any other claim. Siemens v. Sellers, 123 U. S. 276, distinguished.
In this case, held that the foreign patent granted to Berliner for talking machines was not identical with certain claims included in his United States patent in suit, and therefore his patent as to those claims did not expire with the foreign patent under § 4887, Rev.Stat.
A patent of the United States for an invention extends under § 4887, Rev.Stat., for the duration of the definite term for which a foreign patent may have been granted for the same invention, and does not expire by the forfeiture of such foreign patent or through the operation of a condition subsequent according to the foreign patent, such as the payment of fees during the life of the patent.
146 F. 534, 148 F. 1022, affirmed.
This case is here on certiorari to an interlocutory decree of injunction restraining the petitioner, Leeds & Catlin Company, from manufacturing, using, or selling sound-reproducing apparatus or devices embodied in claim No. 35 of letters patent No. 534,543, issued to Emil Berliner, bearing date 19th of February, 1895, and also from manufacturing, using, or selling or in any way disposing of apparatus or devices which embody the method specified in claim No. 5 of the same patent. These claims will be given hereafter.
under the laws of the United States. It also alleges the transfer of title to the plaintiffs in the suit and the infringement of claims 5, 32, and 35 by the defendant, petitioner herein.
Petitioner answered, denying some of the allegations of the bill, and, of others, denying that it had knowledge or information sufficient to form a belief. Explicitly denied infringement, and alleged anticipation of the invention described in the patent by a great number of patents and publications in this country and other countries, an enumeration of which was made. And hence it is alleged that, in view of the state of the art, Berliner was not the first inventor or discoverer of any material or substantial part of the alleged improvement and invention described or claimed.
The answer further alleged that said letters patent did not describe or specify or claim any subject matter patentable under the statutes of the United States, and are and always have been null and void. Abandonment is alleged, and a two-years' use of the invention in this country before the application for the patent, that the invention and improvement were known and used by others, and were in public use and on sale in this country by divers persons, a list of whose names is given.
It is alleged that, before the invention was patented in the United States, the same was patented, or caused to be patented, by Emil Berliner in foreign countries, and that, by reason whereof, under § 4887 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, the letters patent in suit were limited to expire at the same time with said foreign patents and each of them. The numbers and dates of the foreign patents are given -- two in Great Britain, three in France, three in Germany, and one in Canada. They will be specifically referred to hereafter. And it is alleged that, in consequence thereof, the said letters patent of the United States have long since expired, and plaintiff is not entitled to any relief by injunction or other relief in equity, that a court of equity has no jurisdiction of the suit, and that plaintiff has an adequate remedy at law. A replication was filed to the answer.
Upon the bill and certain supporting affidavits, an order to show cause against a preliminary injunction was issued, which, coming on to be heard upon such affidavits and other affidavits and exhibits, a preliminary injunction was granted. 146 F. 534. It was affirmed by the circuit court of appeals. 148 F. 1022.
The motion for preliminary injunction was made upon affidavits. Those of respondent (complainant in the circuit court) described the invention and the machine made in accordance therewith, averred the practical identity of petitioner's machine therewith, and set forth the record in the case of The Victor Talking Mach. Co. v. The American Graphophone Co., instituted in the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York. The affidavits averred that the suit was pending and awaiting decision when this suit was brought, and was subsequently decided; that, by the decision, Claims 5 and 35 of the patent in suit were held valid and infringed by the talking machine of the defendants, and that an injunction was ordered. 140 F. 860. And it was stated that the circuit court of appeals, though not concurring with the circuit court in all of its reasoning, affirmed the decree.
The affidavits of petitioner (the defendant in the courts below) set forth the defenses which were made in the case just referred to, a summary of the proofs introduced to sustain the defense, and submitted new matter. The affidavits also contained a description of the patent in suit and what was considered to be its basic invention; averred its identity with certain foreign patents which were not in evidence in the other suit. The affidavits also undertook to meet and refute the charge of infringement. The affidavits were very long and circumstantial, and had attached to them copies of the foreign and domestic patents relied on, translations of foreign laws, copies of publications, and certain testimony. Such parts of these exhibits as we deem relevant will be referred to hereafter.
some mechanical exhibits, presenting grave questions of fact, we are asked by petitioner to go beyond the action of the lower courts, and not only reverse them as to a preliminary injunction, but decide the case. If we should yield to this invocation and attempt a final decision, it would be difficult to say whether it would be more unjust to petitioner or to respondent.
"But even if I am mistaken in this view, and if the expiration of the Suess Canadian patent is a complete defense, or if a decision of the questions raised as to the character and scope of the various patents now introduced for the first time should be postponed until final hearing, yet I am constrained to grant the injunction in order to permit an appeal and a determination of the questions at the earliest possible moment."
And the lower courts also reserved to the merits the consideration of the defense that Claims 5 and 35 were invalid because they were the functions of machines, resting those defenses, so far as the preliminary injunction was concerned, upon the adjudication in the prior suit. We shall do the same, remarking, however, that the contention, if it has any strength as to Claim 5, seems to us untenable as to Claim 35. We think the latter is a valid combination, consisting of the elements (1) a traveling tablet having a sound record formed thereon; (2) a reproducing stylus, shaped for engagement with the record, and free to be vibrated and propelled by it. It is therefore a true mechanical device, producing by the cooperation of its constituents the result specified and in the manner specified.
and that the new matter introduced by petitioner did not repel the presumption or limit the extent of the patent. That the lower courts properly regarded the prior adjudications as a ground of preliminary injunction is established by the cases cited in Walker on Patents, §§ 665 et seq. See also Robinson on Patents, §§ 117 et seq. And, in that aspect, the question must be considered, and, so considering it, we may pass the defenses of anticipation, whether complete or partial, and the defense of infringement. These are, we have already said, questions of fact which we are not inclined to pass upon unaided by the judgments of the lower courts, made after a hearing on the merits.
The patent in suit and the patents which, it is contended, anticipate it or limit its extent or duration, are for methods or devices whereby sound undulations trace or inscribe themselves upon a solid material, and are by suitable devices made to reproduce themselves and the sounds which made them. One of the questions in the case is, as we have seen, the relation of the patent in suit to the prior art. It is contended by the respondent that Berliner (he was the patentee of the patent in suit), improved the prior art not only in the methods of recording and reproducing sounds, but in the devices by which the methods are accomplished.
a sound record tablet, consisting of a flat disc of hard, resisting material, having in its surface inscribed a spiral groove of practically even depth but undulating laterally in accordance with the sound waves. The patent in suit describes and specifies the ways of making such record tablet, as do the prior patents the sound records of the respective patentees. Further description of the records, however, is not necessary, as we shall have with them but incidental concern.
"serves the two-fold purpose of vibrating the stylus and producing the necessary vibrations in the diaphragm of the sound box and also to automatically propelling the stylus in the groove across the surface of the record without a feed screw or other mechanism independent of the record itself."
of reproducing sounds from a record of the same which consists in vibrating a stylus and propelling the same along the record, substantially as described. No. 35 is a sound-producing apparatus, consisting of a traveling tablet having a sound record formed thereon and a reproducing stylus shaped for engagement with said record, and free to be vibrated and propelled by the same, substantially as described."
"SEC. 4887. No person shall be debarred from receiving a patent for his invention or discovery, nor shall any patent be declared invalid, by reason of its having been first patented or caused to be patented in a foreign country unless the same has been introduced into public use in the United States for more than two years prior to the application. But every patent granted for an invention which has been previously patented in a foreign country shall be so limited as to expire at the same time with the foreign patent, or, if there be more than one at the same time with the one having the shortest term, and in no case shall it be in force more than seventeen years."
"expressed and positive declaration of the patentee as to what are the features of his invention, the courts below not only held that the patent included other features not enumerated by Berliner, but went even further, and held that the features which Berliner did enumerate as the features of his invention are not the principal features of his invention, but are mere minor details."
but parts. The purpose is to identify the invention of the patent with every one of the foreign patents, and bring the case under what is conceived to be the doctrine of Siemen v. Sellers, 123 U. S. 276.
That case, it is contended, precludes a distinction between the claims of a patent into basic and not basic, principal or subordinate, and establishes that all the claims of a home patent must be so limited as to expire with the expiration of a foreign patent, or, if there be more than one prior foreign patent, with the expiration of the one having the shortest term. Upon the expiration of a patent, it is argued, all of its claims expire, since, as this Court said in Siemen v. Sellers, as it is contended, a patent cannot be considered as running partly to one date and partly to another, for this would be productive of endless confusion. In other words, a patent cannot expire in parcels, it cannot have a plurality of terms. Therefore it is contended that it is the patent, and not the separate claims thereof, which are by the statute limited to expire with the foreign patent. Siemen v. Sellers is cited for this doctrine, as we have said, and also the following cases: Western Electric Co. v. Citizens' Telegraph Co., 106 F. 215; Sawyer v. Spindle Co., 133 F. 238, aff'd in 143 F. 976; Thomson-Houston Co. v. McLean, 153 F. 883.
patentees to their entire invention, and is at least as broad and comprehensive as all four claims in the American patent."
"It is contended by the counsel of the complainants that the American patent contains improvements which are not exhibited in the English patent. But, if this were so, it would not help the complainants. The principal invention is in both, and if the American patent contains additional improvements, this fact cannot save the patent from the operation of the law which is invoked, if it is subject to that law at all. A patent cannot be exempt from the operation of the law by adding some new improvements to the invention, and cannot be construed as running partly from one date and partly from another. This would be productive of endless confusion."
improvement thereof, . . . may . . . obtain a patent therefor."
The improvement would be the invention, and would endure for the period given to it by law. Besides, a patent may embrace more than one invention. Steinmetz v. Allen, 192 U. S. 543. A process and an apparatus by which it is performed are distinct things. They may be found in one patent; they may be made the subject of different patents. So may other dependent and related inventions. If patented separately, a foreign patent for either would not affect the other. Why would such effect follow if they are embraced in the same patent? What policy of the law would be subserved by it? The purpose of § 4887 of the Revised Statutes is very clear. It is that, whenever an invention is made free to the public of a foreign country, it shall be free in this. The statute has no other purpose. It is not intended to confound rights, and to make one invention free because another is made so. This will even more distinctly appear in case of a patent for a combination, such as Claim 35 is of the patent in suit.
A combination is a union of elements, which may be partly old and partly new, or wholly old or wholly new. But, whether new or old, the combination is a means -- an invention -- distinct from them. They, if new, may be inventions and the proper subjects of patents, or they may be covered by claims in the same patent with the combination.
it was said, the patent "cannot be construed as running partly from one date and partly from another."
extent, these remarks are applicable to all the foreign patents relied on by petitioner.
In the French patent No. 207,090, granted to Berliner, the claims cover a recorder as well as a reproducer of sound. They are practically the same instrument, and are denominated respectively in the patent as a recording sound box and as a reproducing sound box. As the first, to quote the patent, it is used to "trace acoustic curves upon the surface" of a sound record. As to the second, that is, as a reproducer, it reproduces the sounds which made the "acoustic curves."
It is contended by respondent that the recorder and reproducer of the patent in suit differ in certain details of construction and operation from the recorder and reproducer of the German and French patents, but the circuit court said that that question could only be determined by expert testimony, and assumed the details to be substantially identical. We shall do the same, and are of the opinion, for the reasons which we have given, that the expiration of those patents, the French patent as well as the German patent, did not carry with them the expiration of the inventions exhibited in Claims 5 and 35 of the patent in suit.
"An examination of the drawings of the prior British patent shows that there is omitted therefrom the figure 10 of the United States patent No. 564,586, which was the only figure illustrating the form of the device covered by the claims here in suit. There is nothing either in the specifications or drawings of the said British patent which describes, illustrates, or shows the method or apparatus of the claims here in suit. These considerations apply equally to said earlier German and French patents."
in the prior suit, in the suit at bar, the circuit court and the circuit court of appeals both held that the inventions of Claims 5 and 35 of the patent in suit were not exhibited in the British patent, and that is so far a question of fact, pertains so much to evidence, rather than to a construction of the patents, that we may well remit it, as we have other questions of the kind, to the merits of the case.
"The evidence introduced in the original suit showed and the court found on the Suess patent 427,279, that Suess was merely an improver of a particular form of swinging arm device, and some of the language used in the specifications of this Suess Canadian patent, which, however, was not before the court in the original suit, seems to indicate that its structure is merely an improvement on the broad Berliner invention, and Berliner himself afterwards applied for and obtained a Canadian patent for the broad invention covered by the claims here in suit."
some hesitation, that the patent did not then expire, stating the rule to be, as established by the cases, that a United States patent is limited by the terms expressed in the foreign patent, and that it is not affected by any lapse or forfeiture of any portion of the term by means of any condition subsequent.
"The partial fee required for the term of six years having been paid to the Commissioner of Patents, this patent shall cease at the end of six years from date, unless at or before the expiration of the said term the holder thereof pay the fee required for the further term or terms, as provided by law."
And it appears that the fee for the second term of six years was not paid, and that, because of such nonpayment, the patent expired February 11, 1899. The contention of petitioner is, as has been seen, that the patent in suit expired at the same date by virtue of § 4887, Revised Statutes. The necessary effect of that section, it is contended by petitioner, being that, if, by any act of omission of the patentee, the invention becomes free in a foreign country, it becomes free in this country. The contention of the respondent is that the domestic patent endures for the longest possible term of the foreign patent -- in other words, endures for the period expressed in the grant, and is not dependent upon or "subject to be terminated by the occurrence or nonconcurrence by certain facts which would require extraneous proof." These opposing contentions are discussed at great length by counsel, and a number of cases are cited.
"the statute manifestly assumes that the patent previously granted in a foreign country is one granted for a definite term, and its meaning is that the United States patent shall be so limited as to expire at the same time with such term of the foreign patent."
"limited by any lapsing or forfeiture of any portion of the term of such foreign patent by means of the operation of a condition subsequent, according to the foreign patent."
From these views it follows that there was no abuse of discretion in granting the preliminary injunction, and the decree is affirmed.
"Sec. 4884. Every patent shall contain a short title or description of the invention or discovery, correctly indicating its nature and design, and a grant to the patentee, his heirs or assigns, for the term of seventeen years, of the exclusive right to make, use, and vend the invention or discovery throughout the United States, and the territories thereof, referring to the specification for the particulars thereof. A copy of the specification and drawings shall be annexed to the patent and be a part thereof."
"5. In an apparatus for reproducing sounds from a record tablet, the combination with reproducer mechanism consisting of a sound-conveying tube and a diaphragm and stylus mounted at one end of the tube; of a freely swinging supporting frame for the said producer mechanism, substantially as described."
"7. In an apparatus for reproducing sounds from a record tablet, the combination with a reproducer mechanism consisting of a sound conveyer, and a diaphragm and stylus mounted at one end thereof; of a supporting frame for the said reproducer, loosely pivoted to swing freely both laterally and vertically, substantially as described."
"11. In an apparatus for reproducing sounds from a rotating record tablet, a reproducing stylus mounted to have a free movement over the surface of the record tablet, substantially as described."

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