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

Heading: The Basic Patent.

Text: If we disregard the first supposed infringement at Modern in 1910 and the experimental plant at Midvale, the defendant's continuous exploitation of the basic patent begins in the spring of 1912, 11½ years before the bill was filed. It is not, however, quite fair to ignore these earlier efforts, and so to cut off 2 years from the plaintiff's period of inaction. Dwight saw the Modern photograph some time in 1910, and, while it showed no details, it disclosed a plant which was making sinter. We cannot suppose that it did not excite his interest, or that he did not inquire into details, and it seems in every way probable that he then learned of the process then carried on. In September, 1910, when he paid the license fee to Greenawalt under his earlier patents, he did not suggest that he had any complaint. It is answered that at that time the Modern plant had shut down, which is true; but this gave him no  assurance that Greenawalt had abandoned the process. In fact, Greenawalt was active in 1910 and 1911 in getting his process installed, and Dwight was not altogether ignorant of his doings, because in 1911 and 1912 he threatened some of his licensees with suit. It is not as if Greenawalt were a recent or sporadic interloper in the field; he was in the business, a by no means infertile inventor, an active and driving competitor. We think that Dwight must be charged with knowledge of what Greenawalt had done and proposed to do for certainly 13 years before the suit was filed. Meanwhile Greenawalt had built up a very large business, which he estimates to amount in all to about 300,000 tons a year. It is quite true that this has not been by building his own plants; he has exploited his invention only by granting licenses, but the assurance born of such long inaction is for that reason no less. In the case of any accounting, the result of a decree is never more than to take from the infringer money that he has collected in the past, or to charge him with damages. The disuse of his plant follows only upon an injunction, and, as substantially all the decisions turn upon the right to an accounting, they are as relevant when the infringer has not manufactured as when he has. It is often said that mere delay will not serve as a bar even to the accounting. Ide v. Trorlicht, etc., Co., 115 F. 137, 148 (C. C. A. 8); Columbia Graphophone Co. v. Searchlight Horn Co., 236 F. 135, 140 (C. C. A. 9); Drum v. Turner, 219 F. 188, 198 (C. C. A. 8); Baltzley v. Spengler Loomis Mfg. Co., 262 F. 423, 426 (C. C. A. 2); Smith Hardware Co. v. Pomeroy, 299 F. 544 (C. C. A. 2). These cases say that there must be some assurance of impunity, the disappointment of which amounts to an estoppel. We are so to understand the law, and yet it remains true that in most of those cases where relief has been denied no further assurance was given than that arising from the patentee's long inaction. Each year as it passes inevitably builds up a belief, if nothing has been done, that the patentee does not suppose his rights invaded, and, if the time be long enough, the infringer garners the harvest of even the earliest of the 6 years to which recovery is in any event limited, with just confidence that he will not be disturbed. To allow this reasonable inference to be upset, and his financial life perhaps to be gravely deranged, is thought to be incommensurate with the importance of the patentee's stale claims. At any rate, whatever the explanation, there is abundant authority to deny an accounting when the patentee has let the infringer slowly build up a large business without protest. Mosler v. Lurie, 209 F. 364, 370 (C. C. A. 2); Wolf, Sayer & Heller v. U. S., etc, Co., 261 F. 195 (C. C. A. 7); Window Glass Mach. Co. v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 284 F. 645, 650 (C. C. A. 3); Richardson v. Osborne, 93 F. 828 (C. C. A. 2); Universal Arch Co. v. American Arch Co., 290 F. 647, 653 (C. C. A. 7); Cummings v. Wilson, etc., Co., 4 F.(2d) 453 (C. C. A. 9); Simpson v. Newport, etc., Co. (D. C.) 18 F.(2d) 318, affirmed 18 F.(2d) 325 (C. C. A. 2). A delay shorter than that at bar has repeatedly been held enough, and indeed the plaintiff scarcely denies as much, relying for its excuse upon the pendency of the interference proceedings. Its position is that the real issue there was priority in the basic process, and that it was not bound to prosecute while this remained undetermined. It is impossible to see how the priority of the basic process could have been more than indirectly involved in the interference; all that was actually at stake was the priority between the parties in the discovery of the ignition devices claimed. Even to the limited degree that interference decisions are an estoppel at all, so far as we have found, their effect is limited to subsequent controversies between the parties upon the patents then involved. Besides, in such cases the decision, even of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, is not res judicata (Butterworth v. United States ex rel. Hoe, 112 U. S. 50, 60, 5 S. Ct. 25, 26 L. Ed. 656; United, etc., Co. v. Muther, 288 F. 283 [C. C. A. 1]), whatever its prima facie validity until successfully overcome. Dwight & Lloyd would have remained free, therefore, to sue the defendant even if priority had been awarded to him; they had no excuse for waiting, because they gained little by the delay, nothing at any rate which would have precluded the defendant from contesting all the issues. Indeed, it cannot be doubted that, if the ignition claims had gone to Greenawalt, they would eagerly and properly have protested that the basic patent remained unaffected. To allow them to hold in reserve this patent appears to us to invite just those delays which are so oppressive an incident to patent suits. If we are to recognize such an excuse, we weave one more thread in the mesh which entangles those who must pass through their mazes. The delay of 13 years, not otherwise excused, therefore appears to us fatal to any accounting, and the decree as to the basic patent is affirmed.