United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Radio Corporation v. Radio Laboratories, 293 U.S. 1 (1934)

Radio Corporation of America v. Radio Engineering Laboratories, Inc.

No. 619 (October Term, 1933)

Argued May 2, 3, 1934

Decided May 21, 1934

Petition for rehearing denied and opinion amended Oct. 8, 1934

293 U.S. 1

Syllabus

1. Where this Court has affirmed a decree upholding a patent in a suit presenting the issue of priority between those who were rival claimants in the patent office proceedings, upon the ground that the unsuccessful party had failed to establish his superior right by thoroughly convincing evidence, the decree is not conclusive upon a stranger to that record in a subsequent suit against him for infringement, but it is persuasive as a precedent where the issue in the second suit and the evidence concerning it are the same as before. P. 293 U. S. 7.

2. Patents Nos. 1,507,016 and 1,507,017, to Lee De Forest, Sept. 2, 1924, for a "feed back" and an audion "oscillator," sustained upon the evidence as to priority of discovery. P. 293 U. S. 10.

3. A patentee is entitled not only to the uses for his invention that were apparent when it was made, but also to other uses then dimly apprehended, but realized later. P. 293 U. S. 14.

66 F.2d 768 reversed; 1 F.Supp. 65 affirmed.

Certiorari, 290 U.S. 624, to review the reversal of a decree of the District Court sustaining patents upon the ground of priority, in a suit brought by their assignees

Page 293 U. S. 2

against an infringer. Because of the pendency of a petition for rehearing, the opinion, delivered at the last Term, was not published in vol. 292. It is now printed with the amendments that were directed by the order of October 8, 1934, denying the rehearing. See post, p. 522.