Edwin A. Kaakinen, and Kaakinen Fish Company v. The Peelers Company, a Partnership

The District Court for the Western District of Washington, Southern Division, had jurisdiction over these patent claims under the patent laws of the United States ( 35 U.S.C. § 281 ). Jurisdiction of the District Court is founded on 28 U.S.C. § 1338 (a).

The controversy concerns a machine or picker designed to peel raw shrimp, 1. e., to divest edible meat of the head, shell, tail and other appendages. This peeling of the raw shrimp is a necessary step in the operation of a cannery where the ultimate aim is placing the shrimp meat, after blanching, in cans.

The canning of shrimp is an old industry dating from 1878, and until 1949 the picking of shrimp was all done by hand. The first successful machine came into use in the year 1949. Prior to that, from 1944, attempts to pick shrimp by machine had not been successful in eliminating hand picking. In 1949 appellee’s predecessor offered to the industry a machine embodying the inventions covered by the claims of patents in suit. Since that year these machines have virtually eliminated all hand peeling of shrimp in the canning industry.

Appellants herein were users of the appellee’s machines, and while so using these machines…