United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Marsh v. Seymour, 97 U.S. 348 (1877)

Marsh v. Seymour

97 U.S. 348

Syllabus

1. The court concurs with the court below that reissued letters patent No. 72, dated May 7, 1881, and No. 1683, dated May 31, 18&1, for new and useful improvements in reaping machines, and reissued letters No. 1682, dated May 31,1864, for a new and useful improvement in harvesters, all of which were granted to William H. Seymour and others, are valid, and that they have been infringed by the respondents.

2. Seymour v. Osborne, 11 Wall. 516, cited and commented on.

3. Compensatory damages for the infringement of letters patent may be allowed in equity although the business of the infringes was so improvidently conducted as to yield no substantial profits.

Page 97 U. S. 349

The bill in the first case was filed in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by William H. Seymour and Dayton S. Morgan, of New York, to restrain the respondents, James S. Marsh, Elisha C. Marsh, Charles C. Marsh, and John A. Grier, from infringing reissued letters patent No. 72, dated May 7, 1864, and No. 1683, dated May 31, 1864, for new and useful improvements in reaping machines, and reissued letters No. 1682, dated May 31, 1864, for a new and useful improvement in harvesters -- all of which were granted to William H. Seymour and others, but of which he and Morgan are by assignment the owners. In the second case, the bill, which also alleges the infringement of the reissues above referred to, was filed by the same complainants in the Circuit Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, the respondents being James S. Marsh, Charles C. Shorkley, Elisha Shorkley, and D. S. Kremer.

In each case there was a decree for the complainants, and the respondents appealed here.

The remaining facts are stated in the opinion of the Court.