Van Brode Milling Co., Inc. v. Cox Air Gauge System, Incorporated

Appellant, assignee of a patent for plastic battery hold-down frames, brought this action in the court below for patent infringement and unfair competition. Appellee Cox Air Gauge System, Incorporated, a distributor of the accused frames, brought a counterclaim for declaratory judgment as to the validity of the suit patent. The district court found no infringement or unfair competition, and further found the suit patent invalid. The district court had jurisdiction over the infringement claim, 28 U.S.C. § 1338 (a), the unfair competition claim, 28 U.S.C. § 1338 (b), and the counterclaim for declaratory judgment, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1338 (a), 2201-2202. This Court has jurisdiction on appeal. 28 U.S.C. § 1291 .

I. Facts

In 1950 the inventor, Sidney Coleman, an employee of Van Brode, conceived the idea of making automobile battery hold-down frames of a plastic material rather than of metal, from which they had been previously fabricated. The problems with metal frames were that they were subject to corrosion by the fumes and leakage of the sulphuric acid in the battery electrolyte, and also since the metal was a good conductor of electricity the metal frames tended to encourage fires and…