Court Opinion

ID: 9447445
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:35:27.277091+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:03.065419
License: Public Domain

DUFFY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The burden was upon the plaintiff to prove that the adoption by defendant in 1954 of the method of inserting balanc*514ing weights was the result of copying plaintiff’s suggestion made some thirteen years prior thereto. In my judgment, there was a complete failure on plaintiff’s part to meet the burden which was upon him.
If other employees of defendant, without knowledge of plaintiff’s earlier suggestion, hit upon the same idea, and defendant adopted same, there would be no liability on the part of the defendant. Also, if defendant adopted in 1954 an idea from a practice then well established in the industry, again there would be no liability. It seems clear that for liability to attach, defendant must have knowingly misappropriated plaintiff’s suggestion made thirteen years earlier. In my view, the motion for a directed verdict should have been granted.