Court Opinion

ID: 8635685
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-24 19:44:50.873627+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:55:55.058964
License: Public Domain

BENEDICT, District Judge.
The petitioners, being parties defendant to an action brought against them by Rafael Pentlarge, to recover damages for the infringement of a certain patent, entered into a written agreement, under seal, with the plaintiff, wherein they expressly admitted the validity of the plaintiff’s patent, and his exclusive right to the invention described therein, and agreed upon the amount of damages to be paid for their infringement, and to consent to a decree upholding the patent, and adjudging the sum of ,f2,000 to be due as damages, and awarding a perpetual injunction against future infringement by them. [See Case No. 10,963, and note.] In accordance with this agreement, a consent to the decree described therein was given, and, upon it, such a decree was duly entered. The damages awarded by the decree were thereafter paid, and the perpetual injunction awarded by the decree was duly issued. The defendants now, many terms of court having elapsed since the entering of the decree, apply, by petition, for leave to file a supplemental bill, for the purpose of procuring the decree so entered by consent to be set aside, upon the ground that the agreement above-mentioned was entered into under a mistake of fact. To such an application there are several fatal objections. In the first place, the application is, in substance, for leave to file a bill of review. It is, therefore, governed by the eighty-eighth equity rale, and comes too late. In the second place, a bill of review, for the purpose of setting aside a decree entered by consent, without fraud, will not be entertained. “A decree taken by consent cannot be set aside by a bill of review, or a bill in the nature of review.” 2 Daniell, Ch. Prac. (4th Am. Ed.) 1575; French v. Shot-well, 5 Johns. Ch. 555. In the third place, so long as the agreement made between the parties, prior to the entry of the decree, stands, the admissions of the plaintiff’s right to the patent sued on, and to his exclusive right to the invention described therein, made by the petitioners, and set forth in the agreement, under their hands and seals, must operate by way of estoppel, to prevent any different determination as to the plaintiff’s right to the invention described in his patent, from that contained in the decree sought to be set aside. Either of these considerations is sufficient to compel a denial of the application. It is, therefore, denied.