French v. Colby
French v. Colby
Opinion of the Court
This is a proceeding under R.S. 4915.
Colby’s date of disclosure is March 6, 1939. Whether ‘French is entitled to an earlier date depends upon the interpretation which should be placed upon the following facts: [1] On January 27, 1939, appellants sent, from their office in England, to their office in New York, a letter,
The trial judge concluded as a matter of law: “For a date of invention to be established in this country by reason of the introduction of a foreign invention, some person in this country must be capable of understanding the invention and the date of such person’s -understanding the invention is the date established.” He found as facts that Gibbons was the only technical French 'affiliate in the United States who could understand the invention and that the earliest proven date of knowledge and understanding of the invention was March 10, 1939. On this appeal, appellees conceded that Harris showed the sample product to Gibbons before March 6, 1939, but denied that this constituted a disclosure and argued that “it was necessary for him to examine a specimen under a magnifying glass in order to understand it;” consequently, that French cannot go back of March 10, 1939, the date which appears on the chain draft prepared by Gibbons.
We agree with the Patent Office that French is entitled to a date early in February, 1939, when his letter was received in New York.
Reversed.
35 USARA. § (53.
“An integrally woven ladder construction consisting of two main webs having exterior faces of differing color characteristics, connected at their interior faces by cross tapes having color characteristics which include the color characteristics of both of the outer webs as a result of the cross tapes being constructed of wefts and of warps part of which possess the color characteristics of one main web and which are interwoven into only that main web, and the other part of which possess the color characteristics of the opposite main web and which are interwoven into only said opposite main web; while the warps which possess the unlike color eharacteristics of the main web extend over and adjacent to the inner surface of that main web, whereby each main tape is free on its exterior surface from the color characteristic of the opposite main web.”
“One of the troubles with 2-tone ladder web has been the speck marks whore cross and body tapes of different colour join together. Two of our tacklers have just oveicome this difficulty— see sample enclosed. Mr. Gibbons will easily be able to solve the technical side of it. You will see that the cress tape is in both colours of which only the appropriate one is bound into each body. The strength of binding is r.ot quite as much as before, but quite adequate.”
See Winter v. Latour, 35 App.D.O. 415; see, generally, 1 Rinse and Caesar, Interferchce Law and Practice (1940) § 116.
Sydeman v. Thoma, 32 App.D.C. 362, 373; McGrath v. Burke, 56 App.D.C. 220, 12 F.2d 161.
Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.