Cummings v. Wilson & Willard Mfg. Co.

The appellant brought this suit in the court below for the alleged infringement of a patent issued to him May 1, 1906, for a certain invention pertaining to underreamers then in use in oil drilling; his application therefor having been filed -in the Patent Office February 25, 1905. Iiis bill also alleged that tho appellee E. C. Wilson subsequently and wrongfully on July 31,1906, procured an interfering patent covering the same invention, under which the appellee Wilson & Willard Manufacturing Company claims. The bill also alleged that the appellees infringed the appellant’s patent by manufacturing and selling underreamers embodying his invention within six years prior to the filing of the bill.

Various defenses upon the merits were set up by the defendants, in addition to which they pleaded, and according to the record proved, laches on the part of the appellant, which latter defense was sustained by the court below, and the suit dismissed on that ground. The record shows that tho appellant well knew, during all of the more than 16 years, that the appellees were carrying on operations nnder their patent, resulting in numerous suits, where the validity of their patent was…