Dobson v. Dornan

Citations

• 118 U.S. 10
• 6 S. Ct. 946
• 30 L. Ed. 63
• 1886 U.S. LEXIS 1892

Syllabus

<p>The specification oí letters patent for a design for a carpet, which is accompanied by a photographic illustration, and merely states that the nature of the design is fully represented in such illustration, and claims “the configuration of the design hereunto annexed, when applied to carpeting,” sets forth a sufficient description and claim, and the patent is valid.</p> <p>An interlocutory decree which awards a recovery for profits and -damages for the infringement- of a patent for a design for a carpet, and orders an account of the profits from infringing by the manufacture, use and sale of carpeting bearing the design, and of the damages by reason of the infringement, is not open to the objection that it awards the profits and damages resulting from the making and selling of the carpeting, instead of those resulting from the use of the design.</p> <p>On the question of the infringement of a patent for a design for carpeting, in ' a suit in equity, where exhibits of carpets containing the patented and the infringing designs were produced in the Circuit Court, and it decided the question of infringement against the defendant, by the aid of ocular inspection of those exhibits, and, on an appeal by him, those exhibits were not produced in this court, and there was, in the record, testimony tending to show infringement, this court held, that, although there was contradictory testimony, it could not, in the absence of ocular inspection, say that the Circuit Court erred in finding infringement. .</p> <p>The decision in Dobson v. Hartford Carpat Co. (114 U. S. 439,) as to the rule of damages in a suit in equity for the infringement of a patent for a design for a carpet, confirmed.</p> <p>The plaintiff must show what profits or damages are attributable to the use of the infringing design.</p> <p>The defendant made no profits on the manufacture and sale of carpets containing the infringing design. The plaintiff made a certain percentage of profit on the manufacture and s