Globe-Wernicke Co. v. Fred Macey Co.

Citations

• 119 F. 696
• 56 C.C.A. 304
• 1902 U.S. App. LEXIS 4727

Syllabus

<p>1. Patents—Invention—Sectional Book Cases.</p> <p>The Wernicke patent, No. 557,737, for improvements in sectional bookcases, construed, as to claims 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20, and held to exhibit no more than a judicious selection of well-known devices, obvious in their uses, and the application of the same to the construction of book cases, and therefore void for lack of invention.</p> <p>2. Equity Pleading—Amendment of Bill.</p> <p>Where a bill presents a ease in a double aspect, by charging that certain acts of defendant constitute an infringement of a patent and also unfair competition, praying relief on both grounds, an order sustaining a demurrer addressed to the bill in one aspect is merely interlocutory, and remains subject to revision by the court until final decree, and the court may at any time permit an amendment relating to that feature of the bill.</p> <p>8. Unfair Competition—Right to Protection.</p> <p>A claim of unfair competition cannot be sustained on allegations that complainant has built up a large business in the manufacture and sale of sectional bookcases having certain general characteristics, such as variety in size, style, finish, and kind of wood, and so made that additional sections can be added from time to time, and that defendant is making and selling sectional bookcases in imitation not only of the system, but of such general features, with intent to deceive the public into the belief that they are complainant’s goods. It being open to the public to make and use bookcases having such characteristics, it is equally open to any one to make them for sale and to put them on the market.</p> <p>¶1. Unfair competition, see notes to Scheuer v. Muller, 20 C. C. A. 165; Lare v. Harper & Bros., 30 C. C. A. 376..</p>