Where a device possesses such amount of change from the prior
art as to receive approval of the Patent Office, it is entitled to
the presumption of invention which attaches to a patent.
An inventor is entitled to all that his patent fairly covers,
even though its complete capacity is not recited in the
specifications and was unknown to the inventor prior to the
patent's issuing.
The law regards a change as a novelty, and the acceptance and
utility of the change as further evidence, even as a demonstration,
of novelty.
The rubber carriage tire involved in this case and patented to
Grant attained a degree of utility not reached by any prior patent,
and, although only a step beyond the prior art, is entitled to be
patented as an invention.
Utility of a device may be attested by litigation over it
showing and measuring the existence of public demand for its
use.
While extensive use of an article beyond that of its rivals may
be induced by advertising, where the use becomes practically
exclusive, a presumption of law will attribute that result to its
essential excellence and its superiority over other forms in
use.
Elements of a combination may all be old, for in making a
combination, the inventor has the whole field of mechanics to draw
from.
Leeds & Catlin Co. v. Victor Talking Machine
Co., 213 U.S. p.
213 U. S.
318.
On the evidence, this Court finds that the improvement on rubber
tires involved in this case possesses the power ascribed to it by
the inventor and denied by those using it without authority, and
holds that this power was not the result of chance, but was
achieved by careful study of scientific and mechanical problems
necessary to overcome defects in all other existing articles of
that class.
In the courts below, defendants relied on invalidity of
complainant's patent, and did not press the defense of
noninfringement, and also conceded that infringement existed in
prior litigation, and this Court holds that infringement
exists.
Page 220 U. S. 429
Quaere whether, under
Kessler v. Eldred,
206 U. S. 285, the
injunction can extend to sale of articles in other circuits in
which complainant's patent has been held invalid.
157 F. 677 and 162 F. 892, affirming 147 F. 739, affirmed.
The facts, which involve the validity of certain letters patent
for improvement in rubber tires, are stated in the opinion.
MR. JUSTICE McKENNA delivered the opinion of the Court.
Writ of certiorari to review a decree of the Circuit Court of
Appeals of the Second Circuit, sustaining a patent for an
improvement in rubber tires issued to Arthur W. Grant February 18,
1896. The patent, and those which it is contended anticipate it,
have received full exposition in the opinion of that court. 157 F.
677, and 162 F. 892,
aff'g 147 F. 739. It and they were
also passed upon and the patent sustained in
Rubber Tire Wheel
Co. v. Columbia Pneumatic Wagon Wheel Co., 91 F. 978, and in
Consolidated Rubber Tire Co. v. Finley Rubber Tire Co.,
116 F. 629;
Consolidated Rubber Tire Co. v. Firestone Tire
& Rubber Co., 151 F. 237.
See also Rubber Tire Wheel
Co. v. Milwaukee Rubber Works Co., 142 F. 531, 533, and the
same case, 154, F. 358, 362. It was held invalid in
Goodyear
Tire & Rubber Co. v. Rubber Tire Wheel Co., 116 F. 363,
reversing the circuit court, Judge Wing presiding. It was also
declared invalid in
Rubber-Tire Wheel Co. v. Victor Rubber-Tire
Co., 123 F. 85, following 116 F. 363,
supra.
Page 220 U. S. 430
A further display of the patent and of its alleged anticipating
devices would seem to be unnecessary, and that we might immediately
take up a review of the divergent decisions. There is controversy
as to whether they are divergent and irreconcilable in fundamental
conceptions of the patent as well as in result.
We may say at the outset of this asserted conflict between the
cases that the Court of Appeals of the Second Circuit considered
that there was no antagonism between its decision and that of the
Court of Appeals of the Sixth Circuit. It proceeded, as it in
effect said, upon "new facts and features which have been added to
or developed from the records in the earlier cases." However,
something more is required of us than the reconciliation of other
cases -- some consideration of the patent and the state of the art
prior to it.
The patent was issued to Arthur W. Grant, February 18, 1896, and
he declares in the specification he has invented
"certain new and useful improvements in rubber tire wheels . . .
designed for use on ordinary vehicles, such as wagons, buggies, and
carriages, . . . and consist in the construction of parts
hereinafter described and set forth in the claim."
The claims are as follows:
"1. A vehicle wheel having a metallic rim with angularly
propelling flanges to form a channel or groove with tapered or
inclined sides, a rubber tire, the inner portion of which is
adapted to fit in said groove or channel, and the outer portion
having sides at an angle to the inner portion, the angle or corner
between the outer and inner portions being located within the outer
periphery of the flanges, and independent retaining wires passing
entirely through the inner portions of said tire and also within
the outer peripheries of the flanges, substantially as
described."
"2. A vehicle wheel having a metallic rim with outwardly
projecting flanges at an angle to the plane of said
Page 220 U. S. 431
wheel, so as to form a channel or groove having tapered or
inclined sides, a rubber tire, the inner portion of which is
adapted to fit in said tapered groove or channel, and the outer or
exposed portions formed at an angle thereto, the angle or corner
between the said portions being placed within the outer periphery
of said flanges, openings extending entirely through the unexposed
portion of said tire, and independent retaining wires in said
openings, and a reinforcing strip of fibrous material placed at the
bottom of said tire and wholly within said flanges, substantially
as specified."
It will be observed that the tire is composed of three elements:
first, the channel or groove with tapered or inclined sides;
second, the rubber tire adapted to fit into the channel or groove,
and shaped as described; third, the fastening device; that is, the
independent retaining wires located as indicated.
The shape and relation of the parts are illustrated in the
following figures taken from the patent:
Page 220 U. S. 432
image:a
These figures explain themselves, but we copy the following from
the specifications:
"In the accompanying drawings, Fig. 1 is a side elevation of a
wheel embodying my invention. Fig. 2 is a sectional elevation of
the wheel rim, shown partly in perspective. Fig. 3 is a partial
longitudinal section through the tire, showing the openings for the
retaining wires.
Page 220 U. S. 433
Fig. 4 is a transversal view of the rubber tire in detail."
It is conceded that the claims are narrow, counsel saying that
they are "limited closely to the specific construction of the Grant
tire as it is actually shown and described in the patent." And a
right to equivalents is disclaimed. Indeed, a certain merit is made
of this as exhibiting at once the simplicity and perfection of the
invention and the tribute paid to its excellence by respondent by
exactly imitating it, instead of attempting to evade it. It is
pointed out that the coaction of the parts is so dependent upon
their shape and relation that any alteration destroys their
cooperation and the utility of the tire. There is strength in the
contention, as we shall presently see.
Anticipating somewhat, we may say that the tire has utility is
not disputed; to what its utility is to be attributed is in
controversy. The respondents the tire company contend that the tire
is at once firm and mobile in its channel, "creeps" (moves slowly
around the edge of the rim), and will yield laterally, and thus the
lateral blows against it will be cushioned. It is further contended
that, if the tire be "tipped from its seat in the channel by a side
blow," it "automatically restores itself to normal position when
the side pressure is released." In other words, and in the language
of one of the expert witnesses, the tire has the capacity to rise
and fall and reseat itself under lateral strain -- that is, to rise
slightly from the rim on one side, independently of the other, when
subjected to very great strain, and immediately reseat itself when
such strain is removed. "It must be borne in mind," counsel
say,
"that the Grant tire is not cemented into the channel. This is
an essential and important point. Any tire that is cemented in its
channel is rigid, and cannot 'creep' or yield to lateral blows. It
is therefore easily and quickly destroyed. The absence of cement in
the Grant tire is a vital characteristic."
And further, that Grant,
Page 220 U. S. 434
"by omitting the cement, and by permitting the tire to tip, to
creep, and to move in its channel obtained a radically new and
useful result."
And it is insisted that this results because the tire is a new
and patentable combination of parts, coacting in the manner of a
true combination to produce a new and useful result, and is not an
aggregation of old elements or parts, each performing its own
function and nothing more. These propositions are combated by the
rubber company, and it is insisted that the testimony is
"conclusive and uncontradicted that the Grant tire, clamped to the
tire or rim by the straining tension of the two wires," has not the
capacity attributed to it, "and never could have." And it is said
that "it is manifest that this question can be easily determined as
a question of fact," and that the testimony "proves such asserted
movement a myth and a fallacy." And it is urged that such capacity
in the tire is not recited in the specifications of the patent, and
was unknown to Grant.
This tipping capacity is made the pivot of the controversy. It
was as to that that the Courts of Appeals of the Sixth and Second
Circuits disagreed either upon the difference of the testimony in
the cases, or, more deeply, on principle. The controversy and
Grant's alleged ignorance of the tipping characteristic of the tire
really present some anomaly. The tire has utility, a utility that
has secured an almost universal acceptance and employment of it, as
will subsequently appear. It was certainly not an exact repetition
of the prior art. It attained an end not attained by anything in
the prior art, and has been accepted as the termination of the
struggle for a completely successful tire. It possesses such amount
of change from the prior art as to have received the approval of
the Patent Office, and is entitled to the presumption of invention
which attaches to a patent. Its simplicity should not blind us as
to its character. Many things,
Page 220 U. S. 435
and the patent law abounds in illustrations, seem obvious after
they have been done, and, "in the light of the accomplished
result," it is often a matter of wonder how they so long "eluded
the search of the discoverer and set at defiance the speculations
of inventive genius."
Pearl v. Ocean Mills, 11 Off. Gaz.
2. Knowledge after the event is always easy, and problems once
solved present no difficulties, indeed, may be represented as never
having had any, and expert witnesses may be brought forward to show
that the new thing which seemed to have eluded the search of the
world was always ready at hand and easy to be seen by a merely
skillful attention. But the law has other tests of the invention
that subtle conjectures of what might have been seen and yet was
not. It regards a change as evidence of novelty, the acceptance and
utility of change as a further evidence, even as demonstration. And
it recognizes degrees of change, dividing inventions into primary
and secondary, and as they are one or the other, gives a
proportionate dominion to its patent grant. In other words, the
invention may be broadly new, subjecting all that comes after it to
tribute (
Railway Co. v. Sayles, 97 U. S.
554,
97 U. S. 556);
it may be the successor, in a sense, of all that went before, a
step only in the march of improvement, and limited therefore to its
precise form and elements, as the patent in suit is conceded to be.
In its narrow and humble form, it may not excite our wonder as may
the broader or pretentious form, but it has as firm a right to
protection. Nor does it detract from its merit that it is the
result of experiment, and not the instant and perfect product of
inventive power. A patentee may be baldly empirical, seeing nothing
beyond his experiments and the result; yet if he has added a new
and valuable article to the world's utilities, he is entitled to
the rank and protection of an inventor. And how can it take from
his merit that he may not know all of the forces which he has
brought into operation? It is certainly
Page 220 U. S. 436
not necessary that he understand or be able to state the
scientific principles underlying his invention, and it is
immaterial whether he can stand a successful examination as to the
speculative ideas involved.
Andrews v. Cross, 8 F. 269;
Eames v. Andrews, 122 U. S. 40,
122 U. S. 55;
St. Louis Stamping Co. v. Quinby, 16 Off.Gaz. 135;
Pfeifer v. Dixon-Woods Co., 55 F. 390;
Cleveland
Foundry Co. v. Detroit Vapor Stove Co., 131 F. 853;
Van
Epps v. United Box Board & Paper Co., 143 F. 869;
Westmoreland Specialty Co. v. Hogan, 167 F. 327. He must,
indeed, make such disclosure and description of his invention that
it may be put into practice. In this he must be clear. He must not
put forth a puzzle for invention or experiment to solve, but the
description is sufficient if those skilled in the art can
understand it. This satisfies the law, which only requires as a
condition of its protection that the world be given something new
and that the world be taught how to use it. It is no concern of the
world whether the principle upon which the new construction acts be
obvious or obscure, so that it inheres in the new construction.
This discussion may be broader than the contention of the rubber
company requires; indeed, may imply a misunderstanding of it. The
contention may only mean that Grant did not discern the manner of
the operation of the elements which he combined, and therefore did
not really invent anything, only assembled old elements, changing
their relations somewhat, and retaining their essential character
and effect. We should be slow to infer such ignorance. It is
difficult to suppose that the contriver of a successful device did
not understand how it operated; that he saw nothing in it, and
committed it to the world without seeing anything in it but a
composition of wood, rubber, and iron in certain relations, without
understanding or attempting to discover the law and principle of
its organization
Page 220 U. S. 437
and efficiency. Grant's situation demanded caution and
knowledge. He was confronted by what has been termed a "crowded"
prior art; he might expect to encounter litigation, and, even
before litigation, he would have to satisfy the Patent Office of
the novelty and utility of his device, and it is hard to believe
that he did not know the cooperating law of the elements which he
had combined, and only unconsciously made use of it. We find the
contention difficult to handle. When a person produces useful
instrument, to say that he did not know what he was about is at
least confusing. To take from him the advantage of it upon nice
speculation as to whether it was an ignorant guess or confident
knowledge and adaptation might do him great injustice. His success
is his title to consideration.
In our decision thus far, we have assumed that the Grant tire is
an invention, but, as that is disputed, we must examine its right
to such distinction. The rubber company denies invention to it,
and, considering that its pretension to such quality depends upon
the possession of tipping power (including in this reseating
power), contests the existence of such power; and, even granting
its existence, it is yet contended that anticipation may be
demonstrated. In other words, it is insisted that, if tipping power
exist in the Grant patent, it existed in prior patents, and
that
"the old art was crowded with numerous prototypes and
predecessors of this Grant tire, with every thought and suggestion
of novelty and utility that can be found in drawings and
specifications of the Grant patent, or in the idealized contentions
as to the patent by the visions and dreams of the experts and
counsel for the patent."
Two patents are selected to sustain the contention, out of what
are said to be a large number of United States and foreign patents,
with the comment that,
"if they do not show anticipation, none of the others will show
it, and if they do anticipate the Grant patent, it is entirely
immaterial
Page 220 U. S. 438
whether the others do or not."
They are both English patents issued to Frank Stanley
Willoughby. We copy from the rubber company's brief the figures of
the patent 5,924.
image:b
The following is the explanation given by counsel of the
figures:
"The drawings of the Willoughby patent of March 26, 1892, No.
5,924, as to the flanged channel, show the flanges in three
different positions as to the solid rubber tire. Fig. 8 shows the
flange at right angles of the rim; Fig. 8a
Page 220 U. S. 439
shows the flanges somewhat inwardly inclined with the two
retaining wires, and Fig. 7a shows the flanges vertical with two
retaining wires, the retaining wires in Fig. 8a being below the
outer periphery of the flanges, and the two retaining wires of Fig.
7a being centrally located, as to their openings, with the
periphery of the flanges. In Fig. 6, however, which is a pneumatic
tire (a tire when highly inflated is as solid as a rubber tire),
the flanges are outwardly flaring, and the two retaining wires are
substantially below the periphery of the flanges."
There are resemblances and differences in the figures to those
of the Grant patent, and we have let the rubber company set forth
the resemblances. The differences are substantial. To represent
them, we cannot do better to quote the description given of them by
Judge Thomas, 91 F. 988, as follows:
"The Willoughby patent, No. 5,924, Fig. 8a, shows in combination
wire connections, also described in the specification, very
similar, save in location, to those used by Grant, and the figure
shows also a very slight angle located slightly within the flanges.
The rim, however, is of the clinger variety; that is, the flanges
incline inwardly, and bind the rubber on each side. Such a tire
thwarts the lateral play otherwise permitted to the rubber by the
wires, and, although almost imperceptible angles appear, made by
the sides of the rubber, they are not sufficient to give the
immunity resulting from a well defined angle whose vertex is within
the flaring rim. Figures 5a and 5c show rims shaped like the
segment of a circle, in which are seated spherical rubbers held in
place by a single wire. The rim is described in the specifications
as U or V-shaped. A V-shaped rim must have flaring flanges, but the
rim is quite unlike that employed by Grant, and, in the entire
absence of the angle, the functions attributed to the Grant tire
seem to be absent. Indeed, the freedom of action permitted by the
wire in the rim used by Grant seems to
Page 220 U. S. 440
be denied the tire, for the reason that the rubber is confined
by the V-shaped channel."
"The Willoughby patent, No. 18,030, shows wire connection,
flaring flanges, and angle (
see Figs. 26, 30, 31), and in
mere coincidence of parts seems to be the nearest approach to the
Grant tire. But look at these figures, and all possible conception
of coincidence of function is dissipated at once. There is the
flaring rim, in which is seated a rubber upon which is placed a
steel outer tire, through which pass the openings and wires. The
angle is far without the upper edges of the rim, and it appears
that neither function ascribed to the Grant tire is obtained."
Willoughby patent No. 18,030 has no relevancy whatever. It is
true it has flanges upon the rim, flaring and at right angles, and
it is illustrated by figures showing what may be called retaining
wires, to quote from the brief of counsel,
"above the periphery of the flanges, another substantially on a
line with the periphery of the flanges, and three of the figures
showing the retaining wires substantially below the periphery of
the respective flanges."
It is manifest that the relation of the retaining wires to the
periphery of the flanges is absolutely unimportant in the tire.
Willoughby, describing his invention, says:
"The object of my present invention is, as in my previous one,
to provide a metallic outer tire or armor to rubber which is of
itself flexible."
The retaining wires hold the metallic exterior to the rubber
bed.
The utility of the Grant patent therefore was not attained in
the Willoughby patent. The rubber company's conduct is confirmation
of this. It uses the Grant tire, as we shall presently see, not the
Willoughby tires. Let it be granted that they afforded suggestions
to Grant, and that he has gone but one step beyond them. It is
conceded, as we have said, that his invention is a narrow one -- a
step beyond the prior art -- built upon it, it may
Page 220 U. S. 441
be, and only an improvement upon it. Its legal evasion may be
the easier (
Railway Co. v. Sayles, supra), and hence we
see the strength of the concession to its advance beyond the prior
art and of its novelty and utility by the rubber company's
imitation of it. The prior art was open to the rubber company. That
"art was crowded," it says, "with numerous prototypes and
predecessors" of the Grant tire, and they, it if insisted,
possessed all of the qualities which the dreams of experts
attributed to the Grant tire. And yet the rubber company uses the
Grant tire. It gives the tribute of its praise to the prior art; it
gives the Grant tire the tribute of its imitation, as others have
done. And yet the narrowness of the claims seemed to make legal
evasion easy. Why, then, was there not evasion by a variation of
the details of the patented arrangement? Business interests urged
to it as much as to infringement. We can find no answer except that
given by the tire company:
"The patented organization must be one that is essential. Its
use in the precise form described and shown in the patent must be
inevitably necessary."
That the tire is an invention is fortified by all of the
presumptions -- the presumption of the patent by that arising from
the utility of the tire. And we have said that the utility of a
device may be attested by the litigation over it, as litigation
"shows and measures the existence of the public demand for its
use."
Eames v. Andrews, 122 U. S. 40,
122 U. S. 53. We
have shown the litigation to which the grant tire has been
subjected.
We have taken for granted in our discussion that the Grant tire
immediately established and has ever since maintained its supremacy
over all other rubber tires, and has been commercially successful,
while they have been failures. The assumption is justified by the
concession of counsel. They do not deny the fact, but attribute it
to "three subsequent discoveries and conditions" since the
Page 220 U. S. 442
Grant patent, these being:
"(1) that the tire can be held in place and fixed upon its base
by straining the wires to a clamping point; (2) the production, by
mechanical means, cheaply and expeditiously as a commercial
product, of the channel rim in straight lengths, to be applied to
the wheel, and (3) the improvement of the rubber itself; the demand
of the public for a solid rubber tire, and the wealth of the
complainant, advertising in the market, and pushing and exploiting
the tire."
The first ground is a somewhat distant assertion that the tire
does not involve invention, but as to that we have sufficiently
expressed opinion. The second ground is an inversion of cause and
effect, and there is an obvious answer to the third ground. Without
suitable rubber, there could have been no rubber tires, and the
desire for them necessarily induced their manufacture, and Grant
exercised invention to produce an efficient one. We can understand
that some advertising was necessary to bring it into notice, and
give it a certain use, but the extensive use which it attained, and
more certainly the exclusive use which it attained, could only have
been the result of its essential excellence -- indeed, its
pronounced superiority over all other forms. Here again in our
discussion, a comparison is suggested between it and other tires,
and the inquiry occurs why capital has selected it to invest in and
advertise, and not one of the tires of the prior art, if it be not
better than they? But the effect of advertising is mere
speculation; to the utility and use of an article the law assigns a
definite presumption of its character, as we have seen, and which
we are impelled by the facts of this record to follow.
To what quality the utility of the tire may be due will bear
further consideration, if for no other reason than the earnest
contentions of counsel. Aside from those contentions and the
ability by which they are supported, we might point to what it does
as a demonstration of its difference
Page 220 U. S. 443
from all that preceded it, that there is something in it,
attribute or force, which did not exist before -- something which
is the law of its organization and function, and raises it above a
mere aggregation of elements to a patentable combination. And we
may say, in passing, the elements of a combination may be all old.
In making a combination, the inventor has the whole field of
mechanics to draw from.
Leeds & Catlin Co. v. Victor
Talking Machine Co., 213 U.S. at page
213 U. S.
318.
The tire company gives a definition of the "something" as
tipping and reseating power. The rubber company earnestly denies
the existence of the power, and, as we have seen, the Courts of
Appeals of the Sixth and Second Circuits divided in opinion on its
existence. We think such power is possessed by the tire. This is
shown by the evidence, and was shown at the oral argument. And it
is the result of something more than each element acting
separately. It is not the result alone of the iron channel with
diverging sides, nor alone of the retaining bands or the rubber.
They each have uses and perform them to an end different from the
effect of either, and they must have been designed to such end --
contrived to exactly produce it. There can be no other deduction
from their careful relation. The adaptation of the rubber to the
flaring channel, the shape of that permitting lateral movement and
compression, the retaining band, holding and yielding, placed in
such precise adjustment and correlation with the other parts,
producing a tire that, "when compressed and bent sidewise, shall
not escape from the channel, and shall not be cut on the flange of
the channel," and yet shall "be mobile in the channel." We agree
with the court of appeals that
"this was not the result of chance or the haphazard selection of
parts; his [Grant's] success could only have been achieved by a
careful study of the scientific and mechanical problems necessary
to overcome the defects which rendered the then-existing tires
Page 220 U. S. 444
ineffective and useless."
151 F. 238. This conclusion is not shaken by the testimony and
argument urged against it.
The contention of noninfringement is very hesitatingly advanced
-- suggested, rather than urged. It is conceded that infringement
existed in the prior litigations, but it is said that if, under the
closer analysis of the Grant patent
"as here presented, and as considered as contended for, if to be
confined to exact angles and relations of angles and precise
configuration of parts,"
the rubber company's device does not infringe. And this is
attempted to be supported by the testimony of a witness who found,
he said, in the rubber company's tire "the three fundamental
mechanical elements" of the Grant patent in suit, which, he
interjected, were borrowed by Grant, "both individually and in
combination, from the prior art long antedating his alleged
invention," and then proceeded to declare a difference between the
"angles and relations of angles and precise configuration of
parts," to use counsel's language, of the two tires, and briefly
summarizing his conclusion, said that he did not
"find the alleged invention, combinations, and devices of either
of the claims of the Grant patent in suit embodied in or contained
in either of the exhibits introduced in evidence professing to
represent the defendant's tire."
We are unable to concur in the conclusion. The exhibits
demonstrate the contrary. And we are fortified in this by the
conduct of the rubber company in the circuit court. The defense of
noninfringement was not there seriously urged. After considering to
what extent the case, as presented, differed from the prior
litigation, Judge Holt said:
"Of course, if your defense was that this defendant does not
infringe, that would be an entirely different question; but the
only question argued here is as to the validity of the patent."
In the opinion of the court of appeals noninfringement received
no attention, presumably because that defense was not pressed upon
it.
Page 220 U. S. 445
The final contention of the rubber company is that, the Grant
patent having been declared invalid by the Circuit Court of Appeals
of the Sixth Circuit and by the Circuit Court for the District of
Indiana in the Seventh Circuit, the rubber company should not have
been enjoined from the handling or sale of tires manufactured in
the Sixth and Seventh Circuits, and cites
Kessler v.
Eldred, 206 U. S. 285.
The court of appeals practically reserved the question. It
modified the decree of the circuit court so far as it prevented the
handling, using, or selling tires and rims authorized by any
judicial decree, recognizing, as it said, the applicability of
Kessler v. Eldred. But it is further said:
"Whether it should be given a broader interpretation is a
question upon which we express no opinion, deeming it more prudent
to wait until the facts are fully developed."
"There is no occasion for attempting at this time to anticipate
the future, and to provide for a contingency which may not arise. .
. . To provide in a decree that the defendant is not enjoined from
making, using, and selling devices which do not infringe, or which
have been licensed, seems unnecessary. The doctrine of
Eldred
and Kessler, if carried to the extent contended for by the
defendant, will introduce radical and far-reaching limitations upon
the rights of patentees. These questions may not arise in the case
at bar, but if they should, the court should have the facts, and
all the facts, before attempting to decide them."
162 F. 894.
We concur in these remarks.
Decree affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE DAY and MR. JUSTICE LURTON took no part in the
decision.