Court Opinion

ID: 9638174
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:36:42.490643+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:04.563755
License: Public Domain

KNAPPEN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). I am not convinced that the action of the Commission should be set aside. Not only does the conduct of the petitioners impress me as highly unethical, to say the least, but I am disposéd to think that generally, at least, the findings of the Commission are supported by substantial testimony, and so are binding upon us (38 U. S. St., c. 311, p. 720, § 5; 15 USCA § 45), unless the facts found fail to constitute, in law, unfair competition, whieh I am not prepared to say is the case here. I think the Commission was not bound to conclude that the only purpose of sending persons, not customers, to the place of business of its competitor, was to ascertain whether petitioners’ patents were being infringed. Nor do I think it a sufficient answer to the charge of espionage that the competitors would have given to a good-faith intended and inquiring customer the same information given to the secret representatives of petitioners. Method, motive, and purpose may well make unfair a competition whieh otherwise might not be so, and there seems to me substantial evidence of a purpose to drive the competitor out of business. Moreover, I am not eonvineed that competition may fail to be unfair merely because it was not exercised all the time. The useful purpose of the statute here invoked is preventive, not punitive, and I am not convinced that the unfair competition was so trivial as to be negligible.
There may, perhaps, be room for a modification in some respects of the findings or the scope of orders to cease and desist, although I am not so convinced. But I am impressed that the situation called for a reasonable measure of relief, and that the Commission’s order should not be set aside.