The Coleman Company, Inc., a Corporation v. Holly Manufacturing Company, a Corporation

Appellee Holly Company, (sometimes hereafter referred to as Holly) a California corporation and plaintiff below, brought this action charging defendant-appellant Coleman Company, (sometimes hereafter referred to as Coleman) a Kansas Corporation, with infringement of Letters Patent secured by Hollingsworth, et al., No. 2,602,441 on July 8, 1952 and duly assigned to Holly, the owner of the patent. The patent in suit covers a gas-burning wall-heater which is a mechanical apparatus.

The allegations of appellee’s original complaint were expanded in a first supplemental complaint. Appellant’s an swers to both complaints alleged generally (to quote'its brief) that said Letters •Patent and all. claims were invalid and void for the following reasons:

(a) The invention or inventions purported. to- have been patented had been described in printed publication prior to the supposed invention, and discovery by Hollingsworth.

(b) That Hollingsworth was not the first inventor of the material and substantial part of the thing claimed in said patent.

(c) That the invention or inventions purported to be patented thereby did not constitute patentable novelty or invention within the meaning of the…