Miller & Pardee, Inc. v. Lawrence A. Sweet Mfg. Co.

This is a suit in equity in which infringement of letters patent No. 60,878 is claimed against the defendants. Plaintiff alleged in the bill of complaint that the patentees were Pardee, Dewire, and Suportor, who were original and joint inventors, and who thereafter assigned their patent right to the plaintiff. The defendants answered; the answer in effect being a general denial of all of the allegations of the bill of complaint, except that it is particularly pleaded that, in view of the state of the prior art, patented and unpatented, there is no novelty in the invention described in plaintiff’s patent. Defendants prepared a set of interrogatories which they have propounded to the plaintiff, and the plaintiff has objected to these interrogatories on the several grounds stated in written objections, which were filed and afterwards presented in open court.

There are constantly being presented, under objections urged by opposite parties, questions as to the extent the plaintiff, on the one side, can go in eliciting facts by interrogatories of his opponent, and vice ver-sa. It has been insisted, and by several of the federal courts held, that under equity rule 58 a plaintiff can…