Robbins v. Illinois Watch Co.
Opinion of the Court
For the opinion of the circuit court see 78 Fed. 124. On the first appeal in this case the questions were of the validity and infringement of reissued letters patent No. 10,631, granted to Duane H. Church. Watch Co. v. Robbins, 9 U. S. App. 55, 136, 3 C. C. A. 42, and 52 Fed. 215. The questions now presented arise upon the report of the master, who found that the respondent, the Illinois Watch Company, upon a manufacture and sale of 12,886 infringing watch movements, had realized profits to the amount of $25,337.58. This conclusion wras reached upon the erroneous theory that this court had decided that the claim of the Church patent is substantially for a combination of the material parts of the entire machine (meaning the entire watch movement), and, by necessary consequence, that the complainants were entitled to the entire profits realized. In the first paragraph of its opinion this court quoted from the opinion of the supreme court in the case of the Corn Planter Patent, 23 Wall. 181, 218, a passage which, in respect to the claim of that patent, contains the expi'ession, “It is substantially for a combination of the material parts of the entire machine.” But for the present contention of the, appellants we should have deemed it beyond dispute that as applied to the Church patent the quotation is to be interpreted as if it read in this wise: “It is substantially for a combination of the material partp of the entire winding and hands-setting train.” Nothing could be plainer than that Church’s claims are for such a train as an improvement in stem winding and setting watches, and for nothing míre. The different parts which make up the train are described in the specification, and it was with reference thereto that we said: “It is right, we think, to construe the claims of the patent in question as embracing the devices shown in the specification, each claim being regarded as including such devices and combination as are necessary to meet the requirements of the general terms in which it is expressed.” The claims not only do not require, no one of them is so expressed as to permit, the inclusion of the watch movement as a part of the combination. The error of the master in this respect was fundamental, and, in the absence of affirmative proof that the profits reported were attributable solely to the use of Church’s invention, would alone have been fatal to his conclusion. There was no such proof, and, besides, the evidence on which it was found that profits had been made from any source was incompetent.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- ROBBINS v. ILLINOIS WATCH CO.
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- 1 case
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- Published