Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/75/420/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 00:32:32+00:00

Document:
1. Where, in a suit at law for infringement of a patent, witnesses testify to previous invention, knowledge, or use of the thing patented, the judgment will be reversed unless an antecedent compliance with the requirements of the 15th section of the Patent Act, requiring in the notice of special matter the names and places of residence of those whom the defendant intends to prove possessed prior knowledge, and where the same had been used, appear in the record. And this although no reversal for this cause have been asked by counsel, but the case have been argued wholly on other grounds.
2. Semble that the only proper comparison on a question of infringement, is of the defendant's machine with that of the plaintiffs, as described in the pleadings, and that it is no answer to the cause of action to plead or prove that the defendant is the licensee of the owner of another patent, and that his machine is constructed in accordance with that patent.
"he shall state in his notice of special matter the names and places of residence of those whom he intends to prove to have possessed a prior knowledge of the thing and where the same had been used,"
and if he does not comply with that requirement, no such evidence can be received under the general issue.
18, 1849, reissued to him November 15, 1859, and extended for seven years from December 18, 1863, brought suit at law against Putnam and others for infringement. The defendants pleaded the general issue, but, so far as the transcript of the general record showed, gave no notice of any special defense.
The defendants called as a witness one W. Mitchell, and offered to prove by him that in A.D. 1858, he saw in use at a factory of one Andrews, in Grand Detour, in the State of Illinois, a machine for bending plough handles similar to a model then shown to the witness and asserted by the defendants to be the same in its mode of operation as the plaintiff's patented machine, the defendants' counsel promising thereafter to connect the said evidence with other testimony, showing such a machine to have been in public use anterior to Blanchard's said invention, to "which evidence," said the bill of exceptions, "the plaintiff objected as not competent or proper." But the court overruled said objection and admitted the evidence. Other testimony was introduced by the defendants tending to prove that the machine described by the witness, or others like it, were in public use at that place before the date of the invention claimed and owned by the plaintiffs.
2d. That the machine constructed under Morris' patent did not infringe.
On the first defense, while stating that it was not the intention of the court to go into an analysis of the testimony on the question of anticipation, the learned judge nevertheless enumerated the machines set up as prior inventions, leaving it for the jury to pass on the question of novelty or the want of it.
Letters patent were granted to Thomas Blanchard December 18, 1849, for a new and useful improvement in bending wood for and during the term of fourteen years from that date, but, the specification being imperfect, on the fifteenth of November, 1859, he surrendered the patent and the same was reissued to him, with an amended specification, for the residue of the original term.
expired on the seventeenth of December, 1863, but the patentee having failed to obtain from the use and sale of his invention a reasonable remuneration for the time, ingenuity, and expense bestowed upon the same and the introduction thereof into use, the Commissioner of Patents renewed and extended the patent for the term of seven years from and after the expiration of the first term, giving it the same effect as if it had originally been granted for twenty-one years. Subsequent to the extension of the term, the patentee deceased, and the patent was reissued to his executrix, from whom the plaintiffs derive title by virtue of an assignment in due form, as is conclusively admitted by the defendants.
Undoubted owners of the title to the patent the plaintiffs, on the twenty-third of November, 1865, instituted this suit, and the charge is that the defendants, on the second of November of the previous year and on divers other days and times between that day and the commencement of the suit, infringed the exclusive right to the invention vested in the plaintiffs by constructing and using ten machines for bending wood in imitation of the plaintiffs' invention and in violation of the exclusive right secured to them in their letters patent. Process was issued, and being duly served, the defendants appeared and pleaded the general issue, and upon that issue, unaccompanied by any notice to the plaintiffs of any special defense, the parties went to trial, and the verdict and judgment were for the defendants.
Exceptions were duly taken by the plaintiffs to certain rulings of the court in admitting evidence offered by the defendants, and to the instructions of the court, as given to the jury, and the only questions presented for decision are such as are involved in the exceptions to those rulings and instructions.
to prove that the defendants had infringed the reissued patent, as alleged in the declaration, rested their case.
They might well rest in that state of the case, as the letters patent afforded prima facie evidence that the patentee under whom they claimed was the original and first inventor of what is therein described as his improvement, and having introduced evidence tending to show infringement and damage, they were entitled to a verdict unless some evidence was introduced by the defendants to rebut the evidence given to prove infringement, or to establish some valid defense to the cause of action set forth in the declaration.
Influenced doubtless by that view of the case, the defendants offered in evidence the reissued patent granted to one John C. Morris, dated May 27, 1862, as the foundation for the introduction of evidence to show that the machine or machines which they were using were constructed by them under a license from the patentee in that patent, and in accordance with the specification and claims of that patent as reissued. Seasonable objection was made by the plaintiffs to the introduction of that patent, as evidence in the case, but the court overruled the objection and admitted it in evidence, and the plaintiffs excepted.
2. Whether the machine of the defendants infringes the plaintiffs' machine as described in the specification and claims of their letters patent.
Attempts are often made in the trial of patent cases to introduce such collateral issues on the question of infringement, but they are irregular and cannot be sanctioned, as the only proper comparison, on that issue, is of the defendants machine with that of the plaintiff, as prescribed in the pleadings. What the jury have to determine is, does the machine of the defendant infringe the machine of the plaintiff; and if it does not, then the defendant is entitled to a verdict; but if it does infringe the plaintiff's machine, then the plaintiff is entitled to his remedy, and it is no answer to the cause of action to plead or prove that the defendant is the licensee of the owner of another patent, and that his machine is constructed in accordance with that patent.
Suppose the rule in that respect is otherwise, still the judgment of the circuit court must be reversed, as the next exception to be considered is clearly well taken, and the error of the court is of such a character that it cannot be remedied in any other way than by granting a new trial.
Testimony was offered by the defendants to prove the existence and use, in 1858, at Grand Detour, in the State of Illinois, of a machine for bending plough handles, similar to a model shown to the witness under examination, and which, as is claimed by the defendants, was the same in its mode of operation as the patented machine of the plaintiffs.
Objection was seasonably made by the plaintiffs to the admissibility of the testimony, but the defendants stating that they expected to connect the same with the other testimony showing that the machine was in public use anterior to the invention described in the plaintiffs' patent, the court overruled the objection and admitted the testimony, and the bill of exceptions shows that other testimony was introduced by the defendants tending to prove that the machine described by the witness, or others like it, were in public use at that place before the date of the invention claimed and owned by the plaintiffs.
"he shall state, in his notice of special matter, the names and places of residence of those whom he intends to prove to have possessed a prior knowledge of the thing, and where the same had been used,"
of his intention to give such special matter in evidence, as required in the fifteenth section of the Patent Act, and that the notice given constituted a compliance with the several conditions therein specified.
Undoubtedly the plea of not guilty puts in issue the novelty of the invention as well as the charge of infringement, but the answer to that suggestion, as applied to this case, is that the letters patent, when introduced by the plaintiffs, afforded a prima facie presumption that the assignor of the plaintiffs was the original and first inventor of the improvement, and as the defendants had not given to the plaintiffs the required notice that they intended to offer evidence at the trial to overcome that presumption, they had no right to introduce any such evidence, and it necessarily follows that the court had no right to submit any such question to the jury.
Two defenses, said the court, are interposed by the defendants: (1) that the patent is void for the want of novelty; (2) that the machine constructed and used by the defendants does not infringe the patented machine of the plaintiffs, and the charge proceeds throughout upon the ground that both of those defenses were open and were to be determined by the jury.
but the difficulty is that no such questions were involved in the pleadings.
Judgment reversed. New venire ordered.
5 Stat. at Large 123, 124.
Corning v. Burden, 15 How. 271.
Curtis on Patents § 118; Pitts v. Hall, 2 Blatchford 229; Cahoon v. Ring, 1 Clifford 625.
Curtis on Patents §§ 350, 353; Carver v. Manuf. Co., 2 Story 432.
Stat. at Large 123; Teese v. Huntingdon, 23 How. 10.
Agawam Co. v. Jordan, 7 Wall. 596.
Philadelphia & Trenton Railroad Co. v. Stimpson, 14 Pet. 459; Silsby v. Foote, 14 How. 222; Phillips v. Page, 24 How. 168.
MR. JUSTICE SWAYNE, with whom concurred GRIER and MILLER, JJ., dissenting.
I am unable to concur in the conclusion reached by the majority of my brethren, and will state briefly the grounds of my dissent.
come from the plaintiffs in error. It is not of a jurisdictional character.
1. We are bound to presume that a proper notice was before the court below. This suggestion derives additional weight from the fact that the statute requires the notice to be given to the plaintiff, and does not prescribe that it shall be filed in the clerk's office, or made part of the record. In some of the circuits the practice has been heretofore simply to produce and prove it at the trial.
4. The plaintiffs in error not having made the objection, this Court ought not to make and enforce it for them. They have not suffered, and do not complain. The interests of justice do not require such vicarious and voluntary action on the part of this Court. The counsel for the defendant in error has had no notice and no opportunity to be heard. I think, therefore, that the judgment ought not to be reversed.
Corning v. Burden, 15 How. 252.
Laber v. Cooper, 7 Wall. 569.

References: v. 
 § 118
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.