Opinion ID: 1550999
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Defendant's Hood Patent.

Text: The relevant part of this patent consists in the flame-confining hood, which is set over the pan when the charge is to be fired. This is disclosed in the specifications as fitting closely upon the flanged rim of the pan, so as to make a seal or air and gas tight joint. There are slits in the top of the hood, through which air is drawn during ignition so as to carry the flame into the ore body. The fuel is introduced by nozzles, which from the side spray it into the interior of the hood, where it mixes with the air and fills the whole interior with flame. For the purposes of this case, no more need be said of the plaintiff's hood than that it corresponds generally with that of the patent, except that it does not fit closely upon the pan. This was held enough to avoid infringement by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Greenawalt v. American S. & R. Co., 10 F.(2d) 98, and by the learned District Judge in this suit, although verbally it imposes on the claims in suit a new limitation. The considerations which were thought to require this arise from what developed upon the interference proceedings between this patent and the four ignition patents. Thirty claims were at issue in those proceedings, drawn from the claims proposed by both sides upon their applications, of which the defendant had 2 pending and Dwight 7. It would be impossible and bewildering to set out all these, with their combinations of elements, infected, like most proceedings in the Office, with the belief that safety lies only in logistic perfection. The main issue determined was of the priority between the inventors as respects ignition apparatus, and in this Dwight was generally successful. Indeed, the Examiner in a long opinion awarded all the claims to him, including those in which the hood fitted tightly on the pan. The Examiners in Chief affirmed the general finding of priority, but distinguished between a tight hood and one which was not. Finding that Dwight had not invented the first, they gave to Greenawalt all claims which they understood to cover that feature. A second appeal then went to the Commissioner, who affirmed the Examiners in Chief, except as to two immaterial claims, and finally the Court of Appeals affirmed the Commissioner, one justice dissenting, who agreed with the original Examiner.  All this took nearly 7 years, and the question is whether anything was really settled. First, it is said that the Commissioner in his finding distinguished between a closed hood and a tightly fitting one. His language at times would not be wholly clear, were it not for his own definition of terms at the close of his opinion, where he says that the element, which for convenience he calls f, was a hood closed (air tight). There is no ambiguity in his language, when the word closed is so understood; he meant what the Examiners in Chief meant, and the Court of Appeals had no choice but so to understand him. Thus it appears that the last three tribunals, which awarded to the defendant his claims, did so by reading them strictly on his specifications, which, indeed, suggested nothing else. We are asked in the face of all this, as well as of the five other judges who have passed upon the question, to give the claims another meaning. Quite aside from any question of law, we should refuse to do so, except in the plainest case; our diffidence ought to go so far, and we go further. After the claims have received an interpretation on which alone they secured any allowance at all, we conceive ourselves bound by the meaning so put upon them. Anything else makes an absurdity of the proceeding itself. The defendant canceled the other claims, as he had to, and any express limitation which he was compelled to make would, of course, be conclusive upon him. Sutter v. Robinson, 119 U. S. 530, 541, 7 S. Ct. 376, 30 L. Ed. 492. His only relief would be a suit under Revised Statutes, § 4915 (35 USCA § 63; Comp. St. § 9460). There can be no tenable distinction between limitations which are express and those which were presupposed by the authorities which allowed the claims and were the basis of their action. But it is argued that this cannot be, since 2 of the very claims now in suit  i. e., Nos. 48 and 49  were drawn by Dwight upon his own disclosure, which did not show an airtight hood. Whatever the meaning the claims had when Dwight used them, once they were authoritatively interpreted upon their allowance, the applicant, who accepted them, took them cum onere. Had that interpretation extended them beyond their proper import when properly construed, it might, indeed, be necessary to restrict them. The public cannot be charged with notice of a broad interpretation, drawn from matter dehors the specifications, and to put it to an examination of what took place in such an interference as this would be intolerable. No matter what the claims meant when Dwight drew them, in Greenawalt's application they may not be extended beyond their reasonable meaning in that context. But this doctrine need not work conversely; Greenawalt's monopoly may be limited, and the public demesne enlarged, by an interpretation which contracts his claims to less than they might cover, if the specifications stood bare. And so we think they must be. The same limitations apply to claims 13 and 21, which were added after the interference and a personal interview with the Examiner. The scope of the defendant's invention had then been authoritatively determined by his superiors, whom he had no power to overrule. We do not suggest that this was his purpose; but, whatever it was, it was irrelevant. The claims were necessarily limited to the air-tight hood, because that was the only invention that had been awarded. Perhaps this was wrong; with that we have nothing to do. It is enough that Greenawalt may not now press substantially the same language as that already construed, to cover what was disallowed. There remains only the question of the American Ore Reclamation Company. This company intervened, and, while calling itself a defendant, was in substance a coplaintiff. Greenawalt answered, and made the company a party defendant to his counterclaim. The only matter of consequence here is whether the company is estopped to plead noninfringement of Greenawalt's patent. For this Greenawalt relies on certain pleadings in a suit between the plaintiff and the ore company, and upon an agreement between himself and that company. The pleadings may be admissions, but they are nothing more; therefore we ignore them. The agreement gave the ore company the right to license certain other persons under 4 of Greenawalt's issued patents, and any further inventions in the same class which may be made or acquired by Greenawalt during the life of his aforesaid patents; and the invention of the patent in suit was made within that period. We fail to see how, if this agreement is to be held to be a license at all, it estops the ore company, or how, though licenses may be material on the question of validity, they can be upon infringement. When the patentee sues upon the license, the licensee may litigate the question whether what he has done comes within the claims. Pressed, etc., Co. v. Union Pac. R. R. Co., 270 F. 518, 524 (C. C. A. 2). A fortiori, when the patentee sues, not upon the license, but repudiating it, and asserting that the defendant is merely an infringer.  Chadeloid Chemical Co. v. McAdam, 298 F. 713 (C. C. A. 2). In neither event is the licensee estopped on the issue of infringement. On the other hand, if the agreement was not a license, it is immaterial for any purpose. We agree with the learned District Judge on the disposition of the cross-bill. Decree affirmed; no costs.