Hazeltine Corp. v. Emerson Television-Radio

4 Citing cases

  1. Cover v. Schwartz

    133 F.2d 541 (2d Cir. 1943)   Cited 93 times
    In Cover v. Schwartz, 133 F.2d 541 (2d Cir. 1942), cert. denied, 319 U.S. 748, 63 S.Ct. 1158, 87 L.Ed. 1703 (1943), a patent infringement action, the district court had held the patent invalid and had opined by way of dictum that it was also not infringed, the judgment embodying only the ruling on invalidity.

    Possibly a change in strategy might have been the shrewder approach; at any rate, we are now spared the pain of deciding whether a petition for rehearing can restore to us that jurisdiction of which a party's brief or oral argument can rob us. Recent decisions of this court suggest that a matter which should lie easily in the court's discretion, see 11 Geo.Wash.L.Rev. 121, is now in a rather hopeless procedural mess. Compare Richard Irvin Co. v. Westinghouse Air Brake Co., 2 Cir., 121 F.2d 429 (decision below reversed in part, since invalidity is moot upon a finding of non-infringement); Hazeltine Corp. v. Emerson Television-Radio, Inc., 2 Cir., 129 F.2d 580 (decision below affirmed on one, or possibly two, of the several grounds upon which it was entered); Aero Spark Plug Co. v. B.G. Corp., 2 Cir., 130 F.2d 290 (decision below affirmed for non-infringement only, against the objections of Judge Frank); K. Kaufmann Co. v. Leitman, 2 Cir., 131 F.2d 308 (decision below, of non-infringement alone, affirmed for invalidity alone, it being then unnecessary to decide as to infringement); the present case (the reviewing court lacks jurisdiction which the trial court has); and Franklin v. Masonite Corp., 2 Cir., Dec. 31, 1942, 132 F.2d 800 (decision below of invalidity and infringement affirmed for non-infringement). None of the cases relied on seems to me to have pertinency; no one involves merely a change in legal theory in appellant's brief after an appeal has been in all respects properly taken.

  2. Aero Spark Plug Co. v. B.G. Corporation

    130 F.2d 290 (2d Cir. 1942)   Cited 49 times

    We did say, however, that, where there are two grounds, the court cannot employ both. If, then, the District Court in that case employed solely invalidity, it might well have been sustained. If the point decided in the Irvin case were still open, I would be for deciding it the other way. It is, indeed, perhaps still open (or it has been opened and closed in a new way); for this court, in Hazeltine Corporation v. Emerson Television-Radio, Inc., 2 Cir., July 29, 1942, 129 F.2d 580, has just rendered an opinion in which, after holding a patent not to be infringed, it went on to say that, "even had we come to a different conclusion as to infringement, the decree would have to be affirmed" because of the patent's invalidity. In any event, the ruling in the Irvin case should not be extended so that a court must, in all cases, select one rather than another ground of decision, since, even in saying that a court cannot, in a patent case, decide on two grounds, the Irvin case is not supported by the Electrical Fittings case (cited in the Irvin case as controlling), and it is out of line with our everyday practice, in ordinary suits, of giving several grounds of decision when we so choose.

  3. Marvin Glass Associates v. Sears, Roebuck Co.

    318 F. Supp. 1089 (S.D. Tex. 1970)   Cited 6 times

    Where the claims of the patent in suit must be given a very narrow reading to insure its validity over the prior art, this same narrow reading governs to test infringement. Hazeltine Corp. v. Emerson Television-Radio, Inc., 129 F.2d 580 (2nd Cir. 1942); Herz Straw Co. v. Smith, 52 F.2d 32 (2nd Cir. 1931). Defendant, pointing to its lack of commercialization, seeks to append the label "paper patent" to the Kay patent, and thereby restrict its scope.

  4. E.W. Bliss Co. v. Cold Metal Process Co.

    47 F. Supp. 897 (N.D. Ohio 1942)   Cited 10 times

    It does not appear that any other court has determined that specific question; but even if it had been an issue in the prior cases, there would still be a serious question whether or not that would preclude the plaintiff from raising the question here. Cold Metal Process Co. v. American Sheet Tin Plate Co. et al., D.C., 22 F. Supp. 75, is the only case in which there is any showing of participation by the plaintiff, and the decree in that case, after having been reversed in the Court of Appeals (Cold Metal Process Co. v. Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp. et al, 3 Cir., 108 F.2d 322) was finally vacated. But, regardless of the effect of the former decisions, this court feels constrained to find that the disclaimer was proper and that it did not invalidate the claims of the patent to which it referred. It seems that this issue is controlled by the case of Cleveland Automatic Machine Co. v. National Acme Co., 6 Cir., 52 F.2d 769. The cases of Hazeltine Corp. v. Emerson Television-Radio, Inc., et al., 2 Cir., 129 F.2d 580, decided July 29, 1942, and Milcor Steel Co. v. George A. Fuller Co., 316 U.S. 143, 62 S.Ct. 969, 86 L.Ed. 1332, are different, because the disclaimers changed the character of the claimed inventions. It was held in both these cases that the disclaimer changed the combination set forth in the original claims, whereas the disclaimer in the case at bar called for no new combination of parts and no new apparatus. The patent in this case covers a mill and a method for rolling sheet metal.