Sommer

This is an appeal from a preliminary injunction in a patent infringement suit. The appellee Peter J. Lunati is the patentee of a lifting device for motor vehicles, and the Rotary Lift Company is a licensee under this patent.

It appears from the complaint that the validity of this patent had been litigated in the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Tennessee, in which case a final decree had been entered November 18, 1929. The appellant opposed the motion for preliminary injunction on the ground that the patent was invalid for the reason that no invention was involved in the hydraulic lifting device which was covered by the patent and upon the ground that there was no infringement of the patent even if valid because of the fact that defendant’s hydraulic lifting device differed from the X>atonted device and was tire result of a teaching of the prior art rather than of any combination of elements such as were described in Lnnati’s patent. It is clearly recognized by the parties, and well established by the decisions, that the question for the appellate court to consider in an appeal from a x>reliminary injunction is solely that of whether or not, under…