Silsby v. Foote (61 U.S. 378)/Opinion of the Court

by Samuel Nelson

United States Supreme Court

61 U.S. 378

Silsby  v.  Foote

This is an appeal from a decree of the Circuit Court of the United States for the northern district of New York.

The bill was filed in the court below by Foote against the defendants for an alleged infringement of a patent for an improvement in regulating the draught or heat of stoves. The bill, among other things, set out a trial at law between the parties upon the patent, and a verdict for the plaintiff; that the defendants since the trial and verdict continued their infringement, and had even increased the business of making and vending the complainant's stove regulators.

The complainant prayed for an account, and that the defendants be restrained by injunction from further infringements.

The defendants put in an answer, to which there was a replication. Afterwards feigned issues were ordered by the court, to try the questions whether or not the patentee was the first and original inventor of the application of the expansive and contracting power of the metallic rod, by different degrees of heat, to open and close the damper which governs the admission of air into a stove; and, also, whether or not he was the first and original inventor of the combination described in his patent, by which the regulation of the heat of a stove in which it might be used was effected.

The jury, after hearing the proofs upon these issues, returned a verdict in the negative. Afterwards the cause came before the court upon the pleadings and proofs, and the case made upon the trial of the feigned issues; and after hearing and arguments of counsel for the respective parties, held, that the patent was valid, notwithstanding the verdict of the jury on the feigned issues, and also that the defendants had been guilty of an infringement, and referred the cause to a master, to ascertain and report the profits which the defendants had derived by reason of said infringement. A most voluminous record of testimony was taken before the master, and on the 17th June, 1854, he reported profits made by the defendants to the amount of $2,650. Thirty exceptions were filed to the report by the counsel for the complainant, and eighteen by the defendants, and were argued before the court. The view the court has taken of the case here renders it unimportant to refer particularly or specially to the decision of the court below upon each of these exceptions. After disposing of them, the court, agreeably to an earnest request of the counsel that the cause should not be again sent down to the master, but that the court, upon the evidence before it, should ascertain the amount of profits to which the complainant was entitled, entered upon the inquiry, and, after a laborious and minute examination of a record of some six hundred closely printed octavo pages of proofs, found an aggregate of profits to the amount of $17,980.40, and an aggregate of interest, averaged, of $5,663.82, making a total of $23,644.22. And on the 28th of August, 1856, a final decree was entered for the complainant against the defendants for this amount, with the costs to be taxed.

The cause is now before this court on appeal.

The difference of opinion among the judges of this court in respect to the amount of profits that should be allowed to the complainant, precludes the delivery of any written opinion on this branch of the case. The decree of the court below as to the amount, with the exception of the interest, is affirmed by a divided court. A majority of the court are of opinion that there was error in the allowance of interest on the profits found for the complainant. That amount, therefore, which is $5,663.82, must be deducted.

This court is also of opinion that the court below erred in awarding costs of the complainant against the defendants.

The first claim of the patentee in his patent was disproved by the prior construction and use of what is called in the case the Saxton stove, and no disclaimer was entered according to the requirements of the act of Congress 3d March, 1837. By the ninth section of that act it is provided, that when a patentee by mistake shall have claimed to be the inventor of more than he is entitled to, the patent shall still be good for what shall be truly and bona fide his own, and he shall be entitled to maintain a suit in law or equity for an infringement of this part of the invention, notwithstanding the specification claims too much. But in such case, if judgment or decree be rendered for the plaintiff, he shall not recover costs against the defendant, unless he shall have entered a disclaimer in the Patent Office of the thing patented, to which he has no right, prior to the commencement of the suit. There is also another condition, namely, that the plaintiff shall not be entitled to the benefits of the section, if he has unreasonably neglected or delayed to enter the disclaimer.

The Saxton stove was produced on the trial of the feigned issues, after this suit had been commenced, and the question has been in controversy from thence to the present time, whether or not the arrangement, construction, and use of that stove, had the effect to disprove the first claim in the complainant's patent. It would be going too far, therefore, under these circumstances, to hold that the delay in entering the disclaimer was unreasonable within the meaning of the statute. A majority of the court is of opinion the delay has not been unreasonable within the meaning of the act, so as to defeat the recovery.

According to our conclusions, the decree of the court below is reversed as to the $5,663.82 interest, and also as to the costs allowed the complainant, and affirmed as to the residue, without costs to either party in this court; and that the case be remitted to the court below to enter a decree for the complainant against the defendants in conformity to this opinion, and proceed to the execution of the same.

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